Mersehead
Regular followers of our Facebook page will be aware of the solitary scaup that has been hanging around outside the Meida hide as well as a recently found green-winged teal.
Green-winged teal are the North American equivalent of our native teal and can be identified by the vertical rather than horizontal white stripe as seen below.
Green-winged teal (centre) with Eurasian teal at Mersehead in Feb 2014 (Photo Credit: Gavin Chambers)
Scaup are more commonly seen at sea but do on occasions turn up inland. They look similar to tufted ducks but the scaup's greyer looking back and lack of tuft on head are the main diagnostic features for telling them apart.
Moulting male scaup at Mersehead. (Photo Credit: Gavin Chambers)
Other sightings from the Meida and Bruaich hides include large numbers of pintail, teal and shoveler along with gadwall, tufted duck, little grebe, grey heron, mallard, lapwing, barnacle geese, pink-footed geese, wigeon, snipe and curlew
Around the visitor centre and along the hedgerows there has been yellowhammer, reed bunting, blackbird, robin, dunnock, great tit, blue tit, chaffinch, goldfinch, coal tit, house sparrow and in the section between the visitor centre and the farm buildings there was approximately 40 tree sparrow on Monday evening
Flocks of twite ranging in number from around half a dozen to almost 50 have been seen at various points around the reserve, such as the start of the path leading to Bruaich hide, in the fields along to the strip of woodland and on the sand dunes as you wander along the beach.
Bullfinch, wren, treecreeper, long tailed tit, stonechat and goldcrest have all been seen on the circular coastal walk and on the beach itself there has been lapwing, greenshank, redshank, oystercatcher, shelduck, dunlin, ringed plover, grey plover, golden plover, cormorant and curlew.
Good numbers of starlings are still murmurating over the reedbeds around sunset and a male and ringtail hen harrier have both been spotted on a number of occasions. Juvenile and female hen harriers are jointly referred to as ringtails due to the difficulty of telling one from the other and the distinctive markings on their tail. Click here for more info.
Roe deer continue to be seen regularly around Mersehead and badger and fox have also been reported in the last few days but the most exciting mammal sighting was various reports of an otter seen in the ditch along the track heading from the Kite garden to the strip of woodland.
Kirkconnell Merse
Barnacle Geese flying over Kirkconnell Merse, photo taken from Glencaple. (Photo Credit: Gavin Chambers)
Recent sightings from Kirkconnell Merse include a peregrine falcon, barnacle geese, wigeon, teal, mallard, goosander, cormorant, grey heron, dunlin, curlew and over 500 redshank including one leucistic redshank (image available here). Leucism is a genetic abnormality that occurs in some birds resulting in them having white patches or in some cases appearing completely white.
If visiting Mersehead keep your eyes peeled for a leucistic barnacle goose that has been seen on a number of occasions or the leucistic tree sparrow featured recently on our Facebook page!