Summary October 2013
Garden
Things were fairly quiet at the start of the month with just a handful of Goldfinches and a few Blue Tits pretty constant. A Mistle Thrush has been lurking around on the neighbouring house roofs, perhaps eying up their winter supply of berries on the Rowan trees. On the whole though the background temperature has often been quite high and the warm weather may be keeping the usual birds out in the fields and woods so the birding interest for us this month lay elsewhere.
Birding Days Out
The start of October was dominated by our holiday to Scotland. This was partly in order to visit family in Musselburgh, Edinburgh and New Deer but we managed to get some birding in as well. On 4th October we stopped over at Montrose Basin Nature Reserve on our way from Musselburgh to New Deer. It was a little disappointing because we got there at high tide and we would have been better to get there at least an hour before however it afforded us a nice break from driving and it was a very relaxing stopover.
In New Deer we were mainly visiting family but we did fit in one visit to RSPB Loch of Strathbeg, Rattray Head and St. Combs At the first we had good views of wild Geese and Swans, at the second we had fantastic views of a Firecrest and at the last we had fine views of Gannets and Seals.
The birding highlight of the whole visit, though, was undoubtedly our three-day guided birding tour of around Grantown-on-Spey where we stayed at the Grant Arms Hotel and were guided by John Poyner of Highland Nature
On Day 1 we sent looking for Black Grouse and Capercaillie around Dorback and a section of the Abernethy Forest and for Crested Tits in the Anagach forest before heading up to Cairn Gorm looking for Ptarmigan and Snow Bunting and then, in the afternoon, it was off to Strathdearn for Golden Eagles !
On Day 2 the weather took a turn and it was cold, wet and windy but John, our guide, knew where to take us so that we could do some good birdwatching from under cover, sometimes even from the car ! We headed up to the Kessock Bridge and the Black Isle taking in Munlochy Bay, Udale Bay and Chanonry Point.
On Day 3 the weather was less stormy and we headed north up to the coast taking in Findhorn Bay, Burghead and Lossiemouth for more sea watching.
On Day 4 we had to leave but before leaving we had a quick look again in the Anagach Woods for Crested Tits and Red Squirrel before driving down through Pitlochry past Stirling and Glasgow to the village of Hightae near Lockerbie where we stayed at the Hightae Inn.
The following day we visited WWT Caerlaverock where we experienced autumn migration in full flow, a characteristic of the whole holiday throughout Scotland, and one that made for a very dynamic birding experience.
All of our Scottish birding holiday sightings are summarised HERE
Almost as soon as we got back from Scotland we had visitors staying with us but the day they left we shot up to Bob’s Smithy Inn in Bolton where, on our second try, we caught up with four Juvenile Glossy Ibis in the field behind the pub and we were given a fantastic display !
Birding Group
The new Birding Group Schedule has been worked out and we started a little later this year with the first day being a visit to Pennington Flash which was a little disappointing especially since we were really hoping to see the Lesser Scaup that was supposed to be off Ramsdale Ruck.
Because we were in Scotland from the 2nd until the 12th of October we missed birding group trips to Moore and Brockholes Nature Reserves. Happily for us the reports back were that we hadn’t missed anything and apparently Brockholes had been particularly devoid of birds !
The first birding group day after we returned was to Neumann’s Flash and Haydn’s Pool on the 15th October 2013. There were some interesting birds including Golden Plover and Snipe and large numbers of Jays busy collecting Acorns for the autumn.
The following week was a visit to RSPB Leighton Moss just in time before the BBC Autumnwatch programme takes over the site. Actually the site has made it clear that this will not impact on visitors because all facilities and access for the BBC will be located in adjoining fields not usually open to public and not part of the reserve proper. The big highlight of this visit was a good sighting of a Bittern flying across the water in front of Lilian’s Hide and coming to rest on top of some reeds giving us the full classic Bittern pose – I’m not here and you can’t see me ! Other than that there was a Marsh Harrier and at the Eric Morecambe and Allen Hides there were also some great birds.
The last date of the month was on the 29th and was supposed to be to Wigan Flashes but – as ever – it was too wet so the group decision was to revert to RSPB Pennington Flash where we did manage to avoid the frequent showers and getting nice views of Kingfisher, Redwing and – for some – Sparrowhawk as well as some goldeneye and Pochard.