August 9th

The beginning of August can be very quiet. I only saw and heard sparrowhawks as I walked through the woods at Cambo this morning. There were a couple of newly fledged sparrowhawks making a shrill whine almost continuously, increasing in pitch and frequency as one of the parents came back. It was then chased around the wood as the young competed for whatever it was carrying, gaining hunting skills as they went. As I got down to the shore there was more to see: a family party of grey wagtails down at the burn mouth, lots of sandwich terns passing along the coast and black-headed gulls on the beach.

A phone through my seawatching telescope photo of the ring-necked parakeet this evening

I was sea watching this evening from my house trying to turn very distant kittiwakes into arctic skuas in the surprisingly gloomy light. As I sat there I heard a familiar squawk and then saw the ring-necked parakeet fly into a birch tree at the bottom of the garden. It sat there for ten minutes or so, calling quietly and looking around, always I’m sure, on the lookout for other parrots. It’s the first time I have seen it since the beginning of July although I have heard the occasional call. I’m sure it is around Crail all the time, just surprisingly inconspicuous.