Summary June 2016
Species this month = 82
New Species added to 2016 Year List in June = 11
Hooded Crow near Grantown on Spey and Guillemots, Razorbills, Kittiwakes, Shags and a Puffin at the Bullers of Buchan on the 3rd, King Eider on the Ythan Estuary at Newburgh on the 5th, Rock Pipit at Fowlsheugh on the 6th, Arctic Tern on the Isle of May on the 7th, Gannets at Bass Rock on the 8th and Garden Warblers at Moffat on the 10th. The listings above are largely the first sightings of the year but all the seabirds mentioned were seen in other places, often in much bigger quantities, later in the month.
New UK Life List Birds In June = 0
Running Total for the 2016 UK So Far = 176
Garden Birding
We missed a large chunk of garden bird watching as we were on holiday until the 11th June. We cam back to torrential rain. I don’t know what the weather has been like in Manchester in our absence but the garden certainly looks pretty full of flowers.
Birding Group
We returned back from Scotland just as the birding group was making its annual two-day visit to Anglesey so we missed that and we are off to Canada in three weeks so we did not expect to make many birding Tuesdays again this month. In fact, the birding group cancelled the last date of this term and decided to make Marbury Country Park the last day instead. This was on the 21st and, although, we did not get a huge number of birds, nor even anything particulalry rare, we did get beatiful views of three Kingfishers together and other treats.
Solo Days Out
Solo days out this month were few and far between because we were not long back from East Anglia before we were on our way up to Scotland for another break and to visit family. We had some good birding there with 89 species seen over the twelve days which are summaried in this post. Highlights were undoubtedly the “life tick” Icterine Warbler at Laggan but also the visits to the Isle of May and the Bass Rock. A wonderful day out on the Ythan Estuary was also a standout event and, although we did not see as many species in the Highlands as we would have wished, we had many wonderfully sunny days out among the fantastic highland landscapes.