As we had to drop Stuart's dad off at a set time, we only had a short while at Loch Leven, where we practically sprinted to the hide, had a 5 minute scan of the view and then sprinted back to the car. I'd definitely like to spend a lot longer there at some point as it's lovely. The quick visit came up with a decent 20 species, including Pink-footed Goose, a new one for the year list. Stuart also saw a Red Squirrel but unfortunately I was lagging behind trying to find the Goldcrest I could hear and completely missed it.
After dropping Stuart's dad off, we headed to Mussleburgh. Everyone should go to Musselburgh, I had an excellent afternoon there, despite not finding out they had lagoons filled with birds until we were leaving. A Dipper on the River Esk filled the time as we waited at traffic lights to head up to the point. The first exciting spot out to sea was a group of Long-tailed Duck. We've only ever seen individual female Long-tailed Duck before, so a mixed group was absolutely amazing. Plenty of Goldeneye were in the mouth of the river and large groups of Eider just a little further out. A few Oystercatcher flew by making a racket and a couple of Red-breasted Merganser flew past, the second time I'd ever seen them. The other side of the wall were a group of Turnstone and a group of Redshank. The Turnstone were rather confiding but the Redshank flew off the second I even peeked over the wall!
Turnstone |
After some googling and staring at a map, we determined that the B7007 becoming the B709 was the right road. It was getting close to dusk so we headed down the road towards Innerleithen. Within a short while we spotted a Grouse but unfortunately it was silhouetted and flew off immediately - no ID! However round the corner were 3 Black Grouse happily on the hillside. We didn't come across any Red Grouse, but also saw many Rook, a couple of Yellowhammer, a Buzzard and a Kestrel.
We had dinner at the lovely Pig'Halle in Perth, definitely recommended.
Turnstone |
Trip list: 27
Year list: 88
Lifers of year list: 3
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