November 27th

It has been a while. I returned back to Crail last Friday and I don’t think I have seen much daylight since – certainly no sun at all, to contrast with my two weeks before. And it’s been raining a lot I can see – my weather station is up to 83 mm this month which is close to, if not a record breaking monthly total. I finally got back out to Balcomie Beach this morning in the mist and near gloaming. The beach is covered with seaweed indicating the easterlies that must have been going on while I was away. With seaweed, lots of birds of course. Hundreds of starling and tens of black-headed gulls all over, with sanderling, turnstones, redshanks, oystercatchers, curlews and two bar-tailed godwit closer to the sea. There was a group of male goldeneye in the surf and further out wigeon and red-throated divers passing. No gannets at all – they are off on their winter break to the Bay of Biscay or further south. It was too dark to take photos – instead I’ll post some African pictures to brighten things up.

A whinchat fitted with a geolocator last year – I haven’t recaught this one yet

A whinchat ringed last year but with no geolocator fitted to act as a control: I got exactly the same proportion of these birds back as those fitted with tags showing they have no effect on survival

I caught this whinchat just after dawn ten days ago and retrieved its geolocator: I set the nets at 4 am and watched the shooting stars until the whinchat woke up and obligingly flew straight into a net

An unringed whinchat – hundreds were still passing through on their way south

A red-billed hornbill

Green woodhoopoes – they live in tight knit family groups

Sunset over central Nigeria