November 28th

I missed another white-billed diver past Fife Ness this morning. This one with a generous margin of an hour, rather than a minute, but still painful. It was a diver morning. I had five great northern divers, a black-throated diver and about 10 red-throated divers past between Fife Ness and Crail. The great northern divers were appropriately heading north, probably to redress being blown south in the storm on Friday. Only a few little auks, also heading north and a couple of puffins. Earlier in the day as I sea watched from the back of my house I had two frustrating grebes past – I only saw them for a second but they had the shape of black-necked or Slavonian: the former is really rare past Crail, but anything seems quite likely at the moment. A manx shearwater also came past Crail early afternoon – another very late bird. I hardly ever see them in the winter (if ever). It was the fourth cold day in a row, with the temperature around zero first thing, and the wind adding to it. For the first time this winter I felt birds were finding it just a bit harder. The gulls and waders on Balcomie Beach were tolerant of walkers passing only fifteen meters away, and there were robins, stonechats and wrens foraging along the strandline.

Black-throated diver – on the one I saw today, I could see uptilted feet, flapping slightly. A feature I haven’t ever seen on a red-throated diver. (John Anderson)

Advertisement