April 30th

After a very wintry week the weather returned to a more normal April. Warm in the sun and with the sea calming down. There were many more migrants around today. The willow warblers have finally arrived with lots at at Kilminning, Balcomie, Fife Ness & Kilrenny, although few singing. There are now swallows everywhere including one singing from the house opposite me on the High Street. Swallows are, like most migrants, very site faithful, and this bird will be the same swallow that was here, hawking over my garden, last year. I saw my first Crail house martins out at Balcomie, flying low with the swallows in a horse field and then some more in their usual early haunt along the strandline of Balcomie Beach. A final new migrant today was a whimbrel, also on Balcomie Beach, and then a couple more at Fife Ness. The first flew off with a quick burst of its characteristic whistling – always the sound of migration to me. The whimbrels along with the willow warblers and house martins today have brought the Crail year list up to 119. I’m still 20 days ahead of the next best year.

Willow warbler

I went up to Carnbee Reservoir at lunchtime. There are still a few goldeneye present and I could hear the trilling of a little grebe. I was hoping for some ring ouzels which have been everywhere along the east coast the last couple of days. No luck but I had a dashing male wheatear in the adjacent bean field, its pale greys and whites making it obvious, even at a distance.

A Balcomie beach whimbrel – no. 119 for the Crail year list