I am away to Zimbabwe today to catch up on our summer migrants where they really live. But I decided to get a fix of the stormy weather before I go so I really appreciate the climate our migrants are chasing when I get there. Fife Ness had impressive waves in the very strong southerly winds – they were probably bigger on Thursday and Friday but it wasn’t raining today so I could appreciate them. There were lots of little auks passing. I counted 22 in 30 minutes, heading back north, but there were twice as many glimpses of almost certain little auks further out between the waves. I watched one little auk get caught by a gust of wind as it passed close to the rocks. It was lifted up straight towards the hide, its little wings beating frantically to maintain position, so I had a fantastic view of a little auk hovering over the rocks a few meters in front to me. There were other auks passing including a couple of puffins, but only a relatively few kittiwakes and gannets.
Kittiwake battling past Fife Ness yesterday (John Anderson)
Balcomie Beach was wind blasted and empty apart from the redshanks and oystercatchers that will be there whatever the weather – although that said, as I walked back through the golf course I noticed that even they had decided to abandon ship and feed on the greens in a dense flock (dodging the even hardier golfers). The twite numbers are still building up. I had a flock of 55, 25 and 20 between Balcomie Beach and Stinky Pool – probably the same flock of 20-25, so at least 75 there now.
Twite (John Anderson)
On the way back through the airfield there were two whooper swans having a rest in the field opposite the new house, close to the road. I don’t blame them. It would have been slow going if they were heading south.
There were still lots of thushes coming in this morning, with fieldfares and blackbird flocks flying over from the direction of Fife Ness, or in the berry trees. Redwings as well, but most of them came in last month. Balcomie Beach, in contrast, was quiet, with only a couple of purple sandpipers on the northern rocks and the usual redshanks and oystercatchers. The highlight was a little auk swimming across the bay, close in. It is always nice to see them close up. There were plenty further out passing north – but at the usual couple of kilometers away and entirely technical as the tiny, wobbly auks between the larger razorbills and guillemots. The little auks have been heading into the Forth for the last week and now they seem to be heading back north.
Today’s little auk off the beach at Balcomie
As I cycled back through Sauchope I got the message from a neighbour of a waxwing in a garden between his and my house. Although we are expecting a waxwing year and this is the second waxwing found in Crail this winter, it never pays to ignore one on your doorstep. It will guarantee hundreds over the next few weeks of course. I accelerated and was back in Crail in a few minutes and the waxwing obligingly was still there. It sat in a rowan tree, contemplating its berries, before heading off over Marketgate. Waxwings are surprisingly rare in Crail – this is only my 6th year with them in the last 20 on the local patch. I have seen them in more years if you include St Andrews. But even so they are never dependable on the year list. This makes 175 for the Crail patch year list. Last year’s record was 176 so I could beat this – I still need tawny owl for the year which should be possible if I bother to go out for a late night walk at Kilrenny or even Denburn. And then a winter special like a glaucous gull or black guillemot.
The wind veered south-easterly for a spell today suddenly bringing some cooler air and the haar followed close behind. The moment the haar came in things started dropping in: blackcaps, redwings, fieldfares and woodcocks were reported from Fife Ness to Crail. I saw fieldfares coming in from the sea early afternoon including a bird that just made it to Sauchope, landing in the grass by the beach in an exhausted fashion. It didn’t move at all for a few minutes. There are more south-easterlies from central Europe forecast and heavy rain mid-week. It is a bit late for migrants, but then it has been a late season…
The exhausted fieldfare just in from crossing the North Sea, at Sauchope early afternoon
This morning was fairly still and so the already unbelievably mild 15 degrees for November felt even warmer. The sun came out mid-morning and it felt like a spring day. The robins thought so and were singing loudly from well before dawn. The merlins are still around at Balcomie, and I had a good view of the female at the cottages. I estimated that there were at least 1000 potential prey in the fields for it within 500 meters – the big linnet and twite flock in the Wormiston stubbles, another 200 or so starling, and lots of skylarks to make up the total. A quick flight down to the shore would add another couple of hundred starlings, pipits and small shorebirds. I don’t think the merlins will be going anywhere this winter – they have everything they need.
The female merlin at Balcomie Cottages this morning
The sea was fairly flat but there has been a heat haze all week because of the crazy warm weather. There were lots of auks passing Fife Ness far out and many of them may well have been little auks. I had three closer in in 45 minutes watching mid-morning. Still puffins feeding offshore as well. I had all three diver species passing: a black throated diver heading into the Forth, a great northern diver heading out, and the usual red-throated divers on the water or passing back and forth. The auks and the divers got me thinking about birding happy families: just missing a black guillemot to get the auk set today (there is one about again this winter but I haven’t been lucky enough to see one yet). Also out in the heat haze there was a big gull passage heading south – hard to tell which species, but probably almost all herring gulls. There was an adult little gull much closer in to enjoy properly. On the way back to Crail I checked out the sea around the May in hope of the Cory’s shearwater still being around (it was yesterday) in the better viewing conditions but no luck: there was a greenshank at Sauchope for consolation.
More twites. A flock of 35 on Balcomie Beach this morning. More merlins. A female chasing a skylark for several minutes above the twite, and then joined by another merlin, a male, trying to steal the skylark the first finally caught just above the rocks. And on the way back to Crail, an attempt to see a Cory’s shearwater being watched off the May Island for half an hour mid-morning. It was a squint straight into the sun looking for it, 5km away. Maybe I saw it, maybe I didn’t. An unidentifiable large shearwater perhaps, dynamic soaring up occasionally with the gulls. I had to try. Even though I have seen over 100 Cory’s and over 200 Scopoli’s shearwaters this year in the Mediterranean, a Crail Cory’s today would have been very special.
It has been a twite week. I finally tracked down the colour-ringed twite I saw at Boghall coincidentally exactly a year ago on Nov 8th 2021. It was ringed by the Grampian Ringing Group at the Montrose Basin in the winter of 2019/20. So at least a 2 year old bird, in its third winter or more. The bird was caught at a site baited continuously between Oct and Mar. Grampian Ringing Group stopped baiting the site in that winter and haven’t seen many twite since. Clearly some relocated down the coast to Kingsbarns. It is interesting that it switched wintering sites (although it could have been a migrant caught on its way to winter in Fife). I always thought that although we have variable numbers of twite each winter here, this is consistent with occasional winter recruitments then fewer and fewer surviving birds returning in subsequent winters until the next recruitment event. Then a new lot of young birds end up here again rather than somewhere else along the coast by chance, perhaps driven by variable weather conditions during migration. But this suggests that twite might be more itinerant, changing wintering areas on a large scale readily in response to food availability, which is perhaps not that surprising considering this is what their close relatives, siskins and redpolls, do. Anyway nice to finally know some of the history of the Boghall twite, although whether it is a Scottish or Scandinavian breeding bird is still unknown.
The Boghall (Kingsbarns) colour-ringed twite seen last November – it was ringed 45 km away in the Montrose Basin during the winter of 2019/20
I mentioned the pink-footed geese feeding very unusually close to Crail yesterday. Today as I walked round the field, counting the 400 or so geese there, the reason became clear. It’s fairly obvious. This was the big field of potatoes (which had corn buntings breeding in it just three months ago), that was harvested a month ago. Since then it has been only harrowed and planted with a winter cereal. This means there are lots of potatoes still around on the surface or slightly buried. This is what attracted and is keeping the geese. They are feeding on the thousands of potatoes that the harvester missed. I wonder if this does a service for the farmer. Some of these potatoes will start growing and compete with the cereal and also will act as disease reservoirs for the next potato crop. The geese will be doing a good job of clearing up. The potatoes must be very valuable to the geese because they are staying put even though the field is surrounded on all sides by footpaths with dog walkers and joggers. It is a big field though and the geese retreat towards the centre when you pass within a couple of hundred meters. Nevertheless it is fantastic to have wild geese so tolerant of people – these geese must have little experience of being hunted. In many parts of the world you can’t get within a kilometer of a goose flock.
The pink-footed geese close to Crail today – you can see (especially in the top photo) the pale lumps that are the unharvested potatoes that have brought the geese to feed in the field
We have moved into winter bird wise. There is still a remote possibility of a late season rarity but the winds are south-westerly – the least “useful” wind direction for us – until the middle of the month. The beginning of the winter is good though, a chance to relax after the intensity of the autumn and the feeling that if you just looked a bit harder and checked that extra bush you would find something new. There is still a lot to see around Crail even if I haven’t seen any summer migrants for the last five days – the chiffchaffs finally seem to have gone from Kilminning. As I left Crail today heading for Wormiston a flock of 15 corn buntings flew up from the rape field next to the cemetery. They circled around pipping and the reason then became clear – a female merlin flew in from the adjacent field and over to perch on the trees by the caravan park. I should think corn buntings are very much on the menu for the merlins that winter in the fields around Crail. Like most small birds, if they get up in the air early and above the approaching merlin then they have a low chance of being targeted. But merlins are pursuit hunters as well as surprise hunters and they occasionally chase anyway. Skylarks in particular, and I saw a second female (perhaps the same bird) “ringing” a skylark above Balcomie Golf Course. “Ringing” is where the skylark keeps going up and the merlin follows it, trying to get above it so it can start stooping at the skylark. It was a morning for merlins. I had a third one later at Fife Ness – definitely a different bird – this time a tiny looking male dashing along the shore.
It has been a goosey winter so far. First the barnacle geese hanging around and now flocks of pink-footed geese. There has been a regular flock – again in a rape field – between Crail and Wormiston this week. The normal occurrence for pink-footed geese around Crail in winter is after Christmas as the colder weather inland drives them out to the coast.
The stubble fields between Wormiston and the shore are still full of birds. There was a flock of at least 400 linnets strung out on the wires across the field. I worked my way through it with my telescope and found 27 twite. There were more flocks in the stubble itself, and every group of linnets had a few twite calling among them. The twite are likely to be here all winter. If (when) the stubble gets planted or ploughed they will move into the asparagus fields next door. Twite aren’t always reliable around Crail in winter but they seem to be getting much more regular, and when they are here, more abundant.
Some of the linnet and twite at Wormiston. How many twite can you spot? You are lookimng for streaky breast sides contrasting with an unmarked buffy throat and/or a yellow bill and/or a heavily streaked back. They are also a little bit smaller.
I was cycling along the shore edge of the golf course to Balcomie Beach when I saw a tiny bird suddenly dive under the water along the edge of the rocks. A little grebe! I have had little grebes on the sea during cold weather when inland ponds are frozen but not this early in the winter. As it swam out to sea away from me into the murk and its size became much less apparent it looked more and more like a Slavonian grebe. These type of sightings are really helpful to learn for the next time. Little grebes can look quite long billed and capped like Slavonians at times but their general buffyness and lack of contrast in the face is the giveaway for little.
The little grebe on the sea at Balcomie this morning, looking a little bit like a much rarer Slavonian grebe as it swam away
As I arrived at Fife Ness a snow bunting flew up from the rocks in front of the hide – the big white patch across the first half of the wings contrasting with the dark brown of the second, outer half of the wings makes snow buntings very easy to identify even as they shoot off away from you. I followed and found a male perched on the outer rocks. This will be a winter migrant, coming from Scandinavia or further afield in the Arctic to spend the winter in an east coast stubble field or on the shore. Sea watching from Fife Ness was the quietest for several months – very few gannets and no kittiwakes. A surprising number of puffins though – about 8 including several adults with shrunken, but still large red bills – quite close in and feeding. They were here last winter and now more of them. Ten years ago I would hardly see a puffin from September to April and then only flying past on the edge of a storm.
Wild Crail 