May 19th

An impressive Early Purple Orchid at Kilminning

There have been easterly winds coupled with heavy rain showers for the last couple of days. Great conditions at this time of year for migrants. The Isle of May had a couple of red-backed shrikes yesterday and there were other good birds all down the east coast. So expectations were high today despite the heavy haar for most of it. I went out to Kilminning in the morning. The entrance to Kilminning just between the golf course and the airfield is the best place to find a red-backed shrike when the conditions are right. If shrikes still bred commonly in the UK they would breed there. It was fairly quiet but I did see a merlin being mobbed by swallows – a very unusual bird for Crail in May and a great indicator that there were migrants around. Then I found a pied flycatcher down at the coastal end of Kilminning. Again a great indicator species. There was a beautiful orchid down there as well. Perhaps an early marsh orchid, but even my UK orchid guide has nothing vaguely like it. It’s an early flowering species at least. (NB: thanks to Catherine Erskine who later identified this for me as an Early Purple Orchid).

Despite having a good look round earlier, I must have just missed the hoped for shrike – one was found there at midday an hour or so after I left. I headed straight back and was rewarded with a fantastic male catching bees and perching nicely out in the open. The haar made everything a bit flat but the male was glowing despite. The shout then went up that there was a common rosefinch up at the cottages behind Balcomie. I raced over there. A scarlet rosefinch would be a Crail tick for me so I was very keen to see it. Sadly I was 5 minutes too late. Despite searching the area for the next hour and finding a second red-backed shrike (another brilliant male), the rosefinch had disappeared.

I was determined to see the rosefinch so I headed out from Crail again mid-afternoon. No sooner had I cycled out of Crail when I flushed what I initially thought was a corn bunting with shoulder stripes from the side of the airfield road. It was a wryneck – my first Crail bird for nearly ten years, and only my second. I see them in Africa every year and they are a thrill there, but to find one in my own patch is the best of all. Wrynecks are woodpeckers that have gone for camouflage stripes and a ground feeding habit. This one was grubbing about in the side of the footpath, probably digging out an ant nest, periodically flying into the rape field opposite when it was disturbed. I continued on to Balcomie with a happy heart. No rosefinch again but the male red-backed shrike was showing even better and the haar was less heavy.

I headed back to Crail via the Fife Ness coastal path. I was hoping for a bluethroat. There will have been some around today with all the other good migrants. But it’s a difficult, skulking species. The path is now lined with singing whitethroats and sedge warblers as it should have been much earlier in any normal year. The temptation in a late year is to panic and think the migrants aren’t coming back at all. They are safely back now. I saw an arctic skua passing along the coast in a break in the haar; they have been scarce this spring. I headed inland at Kilminning and back along the main road. The wryneck was still there on the footpath to finish off the great migrant day – two out of three very good migrant species, with a great supporting cast of minor characters.

I finished the day off watching the swifts over the centre of Crail. Most seem back now and there was even some screaming. The noise of the summer.

A male red-backed shrike from a few years ago but worth repeating – sadly John doesn’t have a picture of a wryneck yet