December 18th

There was a lively crowd on Balcomie Beach today. A pair of red-breasted merganser fishing among the rocks, about 20 sanderling with 10 each of ringed plover, dunlin, redshank and oystercatcher at the water’s edge and then turnstones, lots of meadow pipits and the usual rock pipits along the strandline. With a final backdrop of a couple of stonechats on the grass stems at the beach edge. Further along at Fife Ness I could see huge clouds of seabirds tailing a large fishing boat on the horizon – frustratingly 5km too far out to make them out. I consoled myself with a couple of bottle-nosed dolphin chasing fish much closer in, although when they are feeding they barely come up at all and not in the regular predictable way that a pod travelling past does.

Male stonechat