Scotland Visit Day 3 & 4 : Forvie & The Ythan Estuary : 10th September 2011

Scotland Visit Day 3 & 4 : Forvie & The Ythan Estuary : 10th September 2011

We has been to various bits of the Ythan estuary on previous visits to Aberdeen-shire but we wanted to go to the parts where we might have a chance of seeing waders. We were also interested in going to the the Forvie visitor centre to find out a bit more about the dune system – parts of which are threatened by the development of a golf resort being built by Donald Trump a little further south on the other side of the mouth of the Ythan at Foveran- so we headed off to the Forvie NNR visitor centre near Collieston and had a look around there but it was so windy that we thought that that there would be little chance of any birds taking to the air from the dunes. On the other hand, we had seen a lot of waders on the estuary of the River Ythan as we drove from New Deer to Collieston ( the A975) so we thought that there would be better birding opportunities there. After having a look around the interesting visitor centre we decided to go back down the main road to the river.

Conveniently there are a couple of lay bys designed for people to sight-see or bird spot from so we stopped at one of these – on a bend of the Ythan on the opposite bank to Meikle Tarty. The tide was coming in but there was still some mud spits and the river banks had plenty of exposed mud for wader feeding so we had some good sightings of large numbers of waders until the tide came in more.

From the car park we could see hundreds (literally) of Lapwings as well as lots of Cormorants and Herons. There were Redshanks, Whimbrels and Bar-tailed Godwits and a few Oystercatchers. In the distance there were very large flocks of birds (in their hundreds) making shapes as the flocks shifted and turned in the air. I was fairly confident that we saw perhaps a hundred Golden Plovers but I couldn’t make a definitive id on them so I couldn’t confidently regard that as a tick. As the tide started to come in the birds flew off to the surrounding fields or other parts of the estuary so we drove further down the main road to the next car park on the opposite side (ie the east side) just where the road crosses the river. From there we could have walked right down to the coast on the opposite side of the river from Newburgh where the Tern colony is. We didn’t have the time to go all the way but we managed a good way down and in the process saw a few Eiders, Skylarks and a very large flock of Starlings. Eventually we started to see the Sandwich Terns. At first we could only see the single Tern but as we returned back along the river their numbers increased relative to the gulls until the main birds in the sky were the Sandwich Terns. A final bonus walking back along the river was the sight of about 8 Seals who seemed to emerge to see what a single – rather brave – windsurfer was doing scudding along the top of the water. As we drove back to New Deer we came across another Buzzard flying low and showing wonderfully. On the drive from New Deer to Forvie we had also seen a Buzzard but this one was perched on a hay bale in a field and near to the road. We were even able to turn the car around and come by a second time to take another look. We would have stopped the car but it was a country road with a bit of traffic on it so we regrettably thought better of stopping.

We actually returned to the Forvie visitor centre the next day with a plan of walking through the dunes to the sea but, unfortunately and not improbably, we got hopelessly lost and by the time we managed to get back to the visitor centre we were very well acquinted with the flora of the dunes but we never did reach the coast. By then it was starting to rain and some of the family that we had dragged along were starting to flag so we decided to find a cup of tea somewhere. However, and trying to look on the bright side, on our way there we saw two Kestrels and a Buzzard and, on the dunes, we did see quite a few Skylarks and small flocks of Starlings as well as the usual gulls.

Bird List

 Location of Forvie Visitor Centre

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