I'm up here now, so have been looking for patches to look for birds. Found some nice places, and seen three species for the first time.
Possill Marsh, mentioned below, has now become a bit of a local patch; goldeneye, teal, wigeon, tufted duck and whooper swan have all been regulars over the winter.
Lochwinnoch, from the post below, is a nice reserve. Large numbers of goldeneye, tufted duck, goosander and wigeon on the loch, and also saw my first ever smew here just before Christmas, with a male and female present.
Baron's Haugh in Motherwell has become my most regular haunt, though, where a pectoral sandpiper dropped in in the autumn and gave some nice views. Also very good for green sandpiper, and had black-tailed godwit and dunlin here, too, with snipe, lapwing and curlew more frequently. Nuthatch here, too, which gets the locals excited, and excellent for kingfisher sightings. Whooper swan, wigeon, teal and goldeneye present throughout the winter, and shoveler and gadwall in small numbers (though haven't seen those species for a couple of months).
Adjacent to my place of work (and a short walk from my flat) is Kelvingrove Park, which has dippers resident on the river. Not unusual for me to see and hear ravens around here, too, and had plenty of redwing and a few fieldfare in the trees outside the flat before Christmas.
Best of all, though, was last week walking with a friend along the Kelvin in the north of the city, I was lucky enough to spot a Ross's goose in amongst a large pink-foot flock. Also little grebe, goosander and goldeneye seen on the river itself.
Hooded Merganser at Kilbirnie Loch, Ayrshire, Scotland. 20/11/2016
The controversy surrounding most unusual wildfowl arriving on our shores has always mystified me, the usual questions, is it wild, does it come to bread, has it got a ring, has it escaped from a wildfowl collection? All may have a bearing on a birds ability to get it self-accepted by the rarity committee. The fact remains that if they all satisfy the identification criteria then, without being able to communicate with these creatures apart, we will never really know where they have come from!
Many years ago we headed up to RSPB Lochwinnoch, just north of Kilbirnie Loch and after an unsuccessful attempt, connected with an American Black Duck, which was accepted by the rarity committee. So when a male Hooded Merganser arrived at RSPB Lochwinnoch last week we began to make plans to visit the bird. The bird then moved onto Kilbirnie Loch and we decided to head north on Sunday. I met the lads from York in Milnrow, Mark K, Mark L & Ellis L at 7am and away we went in my car. The drive over the Lune Valley, Shap, Lockerbie and Beatock was made rather spectacular because of the amount of snow that had fallen in the last week, great scenery. Well Glasgow was reached and a really major amount of roadworks were being carried out, without too much effect on our progress. We passed three major football grounds close to the motorway namely, Hampden Park, Celtic Park and Ibrox.
We reached Kilbirnie Loch around 10-45am and the bird was found on the far side of the water and did not give any real chance to the waiting cameras. Mark commented that we were all a little bit underwhelmed with the bird, but nevertheless a cracking bird seen well in the telescope as it dived for small fish. Not many other birds were present here so after a while we moved up to Lochwinnoch. This reserve has been transformed since my last visit and was really nice. With time pressing on we headed south hoping to reach Brampton near Carlisle to connect with a group of Waxwings in the area.
Reaching the sleepy town of Brampton around 2-20pm, we soon located a flock of around 40 Waxwing`s. The birds must have been feeding all day and were getting into roost mode as they kept their distance, before flying away around 3pm. The weather had been a little gloomy all day up to now, but as we headed south over Shap the sunset lit up the spectacular scenery once more.
Just back from a short holiday in Scotland, which included a couple of days in Glasgow.
Many urban gulls around the city centre, mainly lesser black-backed, but also the odd herring gull, too.
Also in the city centre, next to the cathedral, is the Necropolis, a Victorian graveyard; this is a nice, atmospheric, quite space to spend an an hour or two and see some of the common woodland species. Goldfinch the most prominent, but also greenfinch, chaffinch, dunnock, coal tit, song thrush, etc.
Possil Marsh
This is an excellent little nature reserve maintained by the Scottish Wildlife Trust that can be found in the north of the city; approximately five minutes drive (or £6 in a taxi) from the city centre. Apparently it's excellent for wildfowl in the winter, and otters have been seen there. I didn't see one, but I spent a good few hours here, and saw:
Willow warbler Sedge warbler Whitethroat Reed bunting Goldfinch Bullfinch Chaffinch Swallow Great tit, blue tit, robin, blackbird, wren Swift Grey heron Buzzard Kestrel Lesser black-backed gulls Water rail (heard)
The warblers were all seen in high numbers, and very showy; also skylark and yellowhammer seen on the surrounding rapeseed fields.
