Summary of September 2011
The highlight of September was undoubtedly our holiday in Scotland which took in visits to RSPB Inversnaid, Lerrocks Farm in Doune, Stirlingshire, the SWT site at Loch of the Lowes, Forvie and the Ythan estuary, Montrose Basin and Caerlaverock WWT all in the space of around a week. We saw over 50 species including some nice sightings of Buzzards, Kestrels and Red Kites as well as a Hooded Crow – a Scottish specialty. We had a lot of domestic catching up to do on our return so, apart from one visit to Pennington Flash on 21st September where we saw a Green Sandpiper, we did not do much local birding.
Garden wise, it was a poor month with most birds largely going about their own business in the wild. Towards the end of the month, however, the numbers of birds in the garden started to pick up and on the 25th we had Great Tits and Blue Tits and a visitation (over a few days) of a small number of Long-tailed Tits as well as the re-appearance of a Robin which we have been deprived of for a while due to the depredations of the local cats. We also had a couple of House Sparrows on the feeders, a reliable Dunnock scuttling around on the ground and our Goldfinch numbers are returning to more usual levels with a maximum of eleven at one time.
Our list for our Scottish trip was as follows :
| Canada Goose |
| Mute Swan |
| Mallard |
| Northern Shoveler |
| Eurasian Teal |
| Tufted Duck |
| Greater Scaup |
| Common Eider |
| Common Goldeneye |
| Common Pheasant |
| Great Crested Grebe |
| Great Cormorant |
| Grey Heron |
| Red Kite |
| Common Buzzard |
| Common Kestrel |
| Eurasian Common Moorhen |
| Northern Lapwing |
| Ringed Plover |
| Eurasian Oystercatcher |
| Common Greenshank |
| Common Redshank |
| Whimbrel |
| Black-tailed Godwit |
| Bar-tailed Godwit |
| Common Snipe |
| Black-headed Gull |
| European Herring Gull |
| Great Black-backed Gull |
| Common Tern |
| Sandwich Tern |
| Common Wood Pigeon |
| Common Swift |
| Great Spotted Woodpecker |
| Eurasian Jay |
| Eurasian Jackdaw |
| Rook |
| Carrion Crow |
| Hooded Crow |
| Common Raven |
| Eurasian Skylark |
| Barn Swallow |
| Northern House Martin |
| Coal Tit |
| Great Tit |
| Northern Wren |
| Common Chiffchaff |
| European Robin |
| Eurasian Blackbird |
| Common Starling |