The temperature climbed up from six degrees this morning to 13 degrees by this evening. From a cold spring to a normal spring. The easterlies continue with frequent rain showers so the migrants were trickling in. I had 15 northern wheatears today between Fife Ness and the distillery at Kingsbarns, eight whimbrels, several blackcaps at Craighead and Kilminning, and more sedge warblers, common whitethroats and willow warblers. As the temperature went up so the number of singing birds went up as their energy budgets switched over to the positive.
Whimbrels on Crail golf course this afternoon
There was a pochard up at Carnbee this morning – I was walking between Crail and Cambo and back so got there about an hour too late. I have been checking Carnbee for the last 15 years for a pochard. Although not a rare duck anywhere else, there hasn’t been one on the Crail patch since I have been here. The closest was one at Cameron reservoir this winter, and that was an exceptional record as well. A pochard is not a king eider or a Stejneger’s scoter, but it counts just as much for the patch list and it was so nearly a bird in the hand today.
One of the two white-winged scoters at Lower Largo today, interspersed with velvet scoters to show the difference (top panel in the middle – John Anderson’s photo but only after arm twisting because it is a record shot, second down panel and bottom panel white winged scoter, i.e. stepped head shape).
I was off patch again today. I couldn’t resist the lure of five scoter species that were found at Leven yesterday evening. I went out to the Temple, Lower Largo first thing with John Anderson – exactly 20 kilometers from my front door – a significant distance if I ever decide to expand the boundary of my local patch. There were a lot of other birders there so we were straight out of the car and on to a white-winged scoter by the car park, the North American equivalent of a velvet scoter. An elongated and stepped head shape, with a more pinkish bill and an uptick of white behind the eye rather than a crescent just below the eye made it an easy identification. I say this with the benefit if hindsight. Finding the bird in the first place and noting these subtle differences when not expecting to see them is a different matter. I know what to look for now, but remembering to check for these things with every distant velvet scoter, on a choppy sea…And then we joined the main event on the pier a short way down the beach. There were about 20 people with telescopes watching a male Stejneger’s Scoter – the eastern Siberian version of a velvet scoter – and very, very rare (although some of this is because the species was only described and its identification features clarified recently). Again, easy to identify when you know what to expect: a velvet scoter with another strange elongated head and bill shape, a more pinkish bill with an obvious lump in the middle like a mini, growing rhinoceros horn. And again straight on to it with some good directions. The rest of the morning was watching the two scoter species, losing them among the many velvet scoters that they were with, then refinding them – each time another lesson in how to spot the species next time. The best birding education you can hope for. And during this finding three surf scoters – another rarity from North America, although there are often one or two wintering around Fife in St Andrews Bay or the Forth. But I haven’t seen one for several years and then three come along at once. Another scoter with a ridiculous bill (bulbous and multi coloured) but with helpful very big white patches on the back of its neck and sides of its head. And hundreds of velvet scoters and plenty of common scoters in the mix. 5 scoter species, nearly on my doorstep. Two red-necked grebes were some extra icing. The only slight down on the morning was the temperature – another uncomfortably chilly day for nearly May, and it was incongruous to watch the occasional swallow and sandwich tern flying above the wintering duck assemblage.
Back down to earth in the afternoon. Spring delayed again at Kilminning – all the whitethroats and sedge warblers of yesterday had gone, or gone silent in the chill. But there were, spectacularly, 11 northern wheatears on the driving range at Balcomie Links, so some things were progressing.
Spring was back on this morning. Rain showers plus the south-easterlies of last night brought the migrants back to us. There were lots of new willow warblers at Kilminning, and the first common whitethroats and sedge warblers – all singing, out in the open, full of joy to have made it back to the breeding grounds. I spent a happy hour before going to work reacquainting myself with their sights and sounds that will now everywhere in the Scottish landscape until August when they will head back to Africa again. Best of all was one, or perhaps two, grasshopper warblers singing from the brambles, one occasionally out in the open. The grasshopper warblers might breed, but more likely they are on their way further inland: they are unusually hard to predict, with little site fidelity from year to year.
Two new arrivals just in at Kilminning this morning: grasshopper warbler and common whitethroat
I came round the corner of a line of woodland at Kilconquhar this morning to get to a corn bunting random point when I bumped into a jay. An unusually, not very shy, jay, that hopped about at the field edge feeding in front of me. I was just congratulating myself on finding one for the year list when I remembered I was in the wild west and well outside the boundaries of the patch. Every time I get out to Kiconquhar I regret my patch boundary – great crested grebes, water rails and quite a few other Crail patch rarities to be had easily out there.
I had more success with corn buntings this morning, with several singing birds at Boarhills – always a hotspot for them – and a bird at Bonnyton Farm, right on the edge of their main range. At Boarhills I watched a male kestrel land on a wall, displacing the two corn buntings there, and then I saw a second raptor further along the wall. I first thought it was a female kestrel because it was sitting close to the male, but then realised it was actually a merlin. The two species sat side by side on the wall quite happily and neither reacted to each other when the merlin flew off a few minutes later. Although a female merlin is a little smaller than a male kestrel, it is a stockier and I would say more powerful falcon. I wondered if they were ignoring each other because they don’t compete very much and may very well help each other: kestrels catch on the ground and prey flushes to them, whereas merlins usually catch in flight and prey crouches to them. But then merlins steal prey from kestrels and occasionally vice versa. After the merlin flew off I looked for the corn buntings again – they were nowhere to be seen. Both raptors are potential threats and I shouldn’t think the corn buntings wasted much time wondering about the nuances of their potential partnership or competition before they exited.
Kestrel (right) and merlin at Boarhills this morning – apparently just hanging out together
Gordon Baxter tipped me off at lunchtime that there were a pair of sand martins at Roome Bay prospecting. Every few years they nest in the drainage pipes in the concrete wall behind the west end of the beach, but only if it has been a dry early spring. The last couple of weeks have been fairly dry so I should think the nest sites seem suitable. I went down to Roome Bay this afternoon and watched the pair for ten minutes feeding on the many seaweed flies that were flying about in the sunshine despite the continuing cold. My first local patch sand martins of the year as well.
Another cold day for April. The corn buntings were reluctant to sing – 1 territory in 34 kilometers! It was better for willow warblers – double figures by lunchtime, and two house martins, this time in the patch at Beley Bridge. I came home via Oldbarns and stopped at the junction of the road to the farm and the dirt track along the main road. This is the best place to see the newly arriving yellow wagtails but not so far this spring. Until today. I heard a soft “tsip” of a yellow wagtail almost straight away. It sounded a long way off, but it was in fact a male calling quietly about thirty meters away. It is great that one is back again and in exactly the same bit of field where they have bred for the last seven to eight years. About a week late, but this season is now beginning to be a bit late generally with the extended cold weather. The first whitethroats and sedge warblers would have appeared by now in an average year. The usual breeding field for the first pair of yellow wagtails is planted with potatoes this year. There is no cover for them to start nesting and there won’t be for another 6 weeks. Luckily the field immediately adjacent – and also a habitual breeding site for the second or third arriving pair – is winter wheat with lots of dense cover already, and 15 cm high stems to easily conceal a nest. The wagtail soon popped over the road to land in the tramlines of this field. Fingers crossed for females and another year of local breeding.
Welcome back. A newly arrived male yellow wagtail at Oldbarns today. This is the main breeding site and possibly the only regular one in Fife at the moment. It is very disturbed – right by a busy road and farm track with the local farm workers driving or walking past all day and every day during the breeding season. So although it is a rare local breeder, coming to see them is fine. Stick to the farm track alongside the road and wait for them to come to you, although perhaps wait a couple of weeks for the pairs to get established (if this happens this year…).
The wind died down a bit overnight thankfully – but has gone northerly so it is February cold if the sun wasn’t shining. And it wasn’t this morning as the rain showers blew in from the sea at Fife Ness, but too late for the east wind. Sea watching at Fife Ness was again just the local May and Bass breeding species, with a steady passage of red-throated divers leaving the Forth, presumably birds blown in during the storms. There were whimbrels going north including three feeding on the beach at Balcomie. There was a flock of turnstones and then another of purple sandpipers on the rocks. They are the start of the high Arctic wader passage that lasts through until the beginning of June.
Three whimbrels stopping on Balcomie Beach this morning
I was cooking this afternoon for the family Sunday evening dinner when the news came through of a male king eider at Elie. The day before yesterday a male king eider was seen passing by the May Island heading into the Forth. This is probably the same bird. King eiders are fairly rare in Scotland. I haven’t seen one since I was in Alaska 21 years ago – they are very high Arctic birds, breeding further north than almost every other bird species. So I was keen to see one again. The Elie bird was in a big flock of Eider and not doing much so I was hopeful it would stay until the evening when family duty would be done. I eventually got to Earlsferry golf course – the 11th tee – by about 7:15 pm. Everyone else had gone and so I worked my way through about 100 eiders before finding the king eider. Not quite a needle in a haystack – it was exactly where it was first reported, give or take a few hundred meters – and male king eiders are perhaps one of the most conspicuous species on the planet. It wasn’t close in, but close enough through my telescope, and initially shining bright in the last of the sunlight that finally made an appearance this afternoon. Most male ducks have outrageous plumage but king eiders seem to have had a fight with Carmen Miranda or a tropical cocktail. Sadly 16 km from the 11th tee to my house so not on the Crail patch list (but in reserve in case I decide to make it 20 km to liven things up in the future). I saw my first two house martins of the year as I walked back to my car, again not on the Crail patch year list yet but I expect there will be some Crail birds tomorrow.
The last two days have been very windy, blowing from the east again but with no rain again to bring anything down. It was fairly painful birding this morning at Balcomie. I stopped to look at my first whimbrel of the year but I could barely see it for my eyes watering in the wind. Sea watching at Fife Ness had lots of birds passing close among the high waves, but all local guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes gannets and fulmars. Nice enough although I had to sit in the lee of the hide to keep out of the wind. Kilminning continues in its quiet phase except for the occasional swallow: I hit a double figure day yesterday for swallows, but I did cover 32 kilometers. Still no yellow wagtails.
I started my third intensive field season on the local corn buntings this week. I am visiting 50 random points within the 200 square kilometers of the study area (basically the East Neuk) to see if early singing birds attract others to join them, so the clusters of birds I find breeding later in June are a result of chance decisions by a few birds that start singing early. Corn buntings like to breed together and they do better when they are at higher densities so some method of social attraction might be a good idea. The alternative is that some good birds start singing early in the best areas, and the best areas inevitably have the highest densities as the others get their act together and start singing – the habitat attracts them not other birds. The two alternatives will be tricky to tease apart but in practical terms it means covering a lot of ground and listening for corn buntings in odd places. Today I covered 21 kilometers and seven random points – not a single singer at any of them until the last one right out at Airdrie farm where I have never had a corn bunting recorded in the last 20 years. I sat down to have a cup of coffee fully expecting another null return – I was 500m from the nearest previously known territory and right on the edge of the study area after all. But within a minute a bird sat on the dyke a few meters behind me and started singing its heart out, before flying over to the other side of the field to do more of the same. Just what I want to find – if this (and other similar new singing locations) turn into a brand new cluster of territories in the next month or so – while my currently empty random points don’t – then this will be indicative of some sort of social attraction. This is all dependent on negatives being true negatives though, and I only had 3 singing corn buntings in total this morning.
One of the three corn buntings in 21 km of survey that could be bothered to sing this morning. I can sympathise with its wet feet – the haar made for some damp vegetation this morning.
I nearly hit double figures for swallows and willow warblers today. But the best bird was a coot – local patch gold – on the pond at West Quarry Braes for the first time. Outside of Carnbee Reservoir, they are very rare on the Crail Patch. A pair bred in the pond at Cornceres Farm in 2021 which is much smaller than the pond at West Quarry Braes so I am hoping they will breed here as well. There were the usual moorhen, tufted duck and little grebe on the pond too this morning.
The easterly winds have continued for the last few days – more haar and grey skies, and a surprisingly cold wind. Today the haar finally lifted and it was gloriously sunny but still feeling cold in the wind. All of these easterlies should bring in migrants but of course without rain showers to bring them down, they have just kept going. Swallows have been trickling in all week, but I still haven’t had a double figure day. The white wagtails are passing through with a few birds reliably along the shore to the north of Balcomie Beach all week. There are more willow warblers too, but again there are many more to arrive. I watched one this morning at Kilminning, bizarrely, persistently chasing away a yellowhammer from the tree it was feeding in. I have no idea – they surely don’t compete in any way and a passing sparrowhawk would more likely grab the yellowhammer than the warbler if they are both together.
Male white wagtail on Balcomie Beach this morning
This evening I went up to Carnbee to look for a green sandpiper reported there. Green sandpipers are not quite stone curlew rare, but I have only recorded them on the Crail patch in 7 of the last 21 years. Again it is the lack of fresh water to blame: I hope the planned scrape at Kilminning will make green sandpipers annual. The green sandpiper at Carnbee was along the northern marshy shore. As usual it was very shy, flushing initially at a couple of hundred meters. Probably a good thing because they often keep within the vegetation and are hard to find unless they fly. Then their very dark wings, back and tail and large contrasting square white rump make them very obvious. They also have the sandpiper jerky, stiff wingbeat flight that also draws attention. I wonder if this is like the startle colours of insects – a bright attention seeking flash as they fly off, which then disappears when they land. Leaving the predator fruitlessly looking for the flash rather than the camouflage. I was patient and eventually the sandpiper came out of cover – well relatively out of cover – to have a look at me and to resume feeding. It will be regaining fat after migrating from southern Europe or even Africa, and to head off in a day or two to Scandinavia to breed.
Without a hide this is about the best view you will get of a green sandpiper on the ground – at Carnbee this evening
It was a lovely evening – the sun was setting but was still making the ducks glow on the reservoir. Carnbee now is not as busy as during the winter – but still worth a visit. Tufted ducks, a few teal, the coot, little grebes and mute swan. The velvet scoter is still there – now in its 4th month as a resident and still hanging around with the tufted ducks. And in the middle of the cow field well to the north of the water, a mute swan egg. Just lying on the grass, huge and perfectly intact. Do birds ever get caught short when laying? Apparently so.
There were easterly winds yesterday and the haar was just offshore from Crail for most of day, and you were full in it if you went further east of the airfield. By Fife Ness it was thick fog so I headed back inland: there were some wheatears dimly on the rocks at Stinky Pool. Kiminning was intermittently sunny but I only turned up a willow warbler. Inland around Crail there were more northern wheatears and barn swallows this weekend. No great rush of migrants yet though. On the loop from Kingsbarns to Kenly and then back through Pitmillie this morning there were no new migrants – a few chiffchaff and a sandwich tern. I tried Barnsmuir and West Braes both today and yesterday for any returning yellow wagtails. No sign. It will be another week of no show before I start to get worried that our run of years of breeding yellow wagtails might have finished. I am surprised that things aren’t appearing early this year with the run of southerly winds – today was more southerly – but it hasn’t really warmed up yet. This weekend has been good for migrant curlews though. Small flocks in the fields around Crail and others passing over, calling mournfully.
I had a quiet day off until this evening. I cycled round Fife Ness and all the local sites looking for migrants this morning. There was a willow warbler at The Patch, Fife Ness and another at the top of Kilminning; a barn swallow at lower Kilminning and at the old garden centre in Crail (always an early arrival site); a fieldfare at Craighead Cottages and the best bird of the morning, a grey plover briefly on Balcomie Beach before heading off with its mournful whistles. But the wind was a strong westerly and there more meadow pipits than anything else: it didn’t seem likely there was much about. Completely wrong of course. I was walking around Crail at about 7:30, enjoying the last of the evening sunlight on the gulls heading out to roost in the Forth. I glanced at my phone by chance – I keep it on silent in the evening so it is not spoilt by work emails – a stone curlew had been found in Anstruther. A very major rarity for Scotland, the first for Fife and of course a new bird for my Crail patch list. I got home and in my car within a few minutes and was in Anstruther, parking by the Dreel Burn ten minutes later. I ran out along the Dreel to the old railway bridge and gasping for breath watched a stone curlew fly over my head disappearing into the stubble field next to me. I could barely believe it – I continued on and saw Bill, the local finder, and Ken Shaw waving at me from the opposite side of the field. I followed where they were pointing to and picked up the stone curlew flying around the stubble field again a couple of times, before it flew over the burn to land in a winter wheat field just behind it. It crouched down and disappeared.
Stone curlew at Anstruther this evening
I was absolutely thrilled to see it even though I know stone curlews very well. They were a local patch bird when I started birding in Cambridgeshire 45 years ago. A superbly camouflaged rare breeder that likes bare stony fields, nocturnal and with an eerie call like a ghostly curlew. Hard to find and hard to see. We were proud to know exactly where the local birds bred and we watched them as our secret every year. But they are only very rare vagrants to Scotland, and only a very vague hope for the Crail patch list. I only see stone curlews now on southern European holidays, or the several very similar species that occur in Africa. And here was one on the local patch – probably the only one that will turn up in my lifetime.
I knew others would be hurrying to see the bird, and the sun was just setting, so it was important to relocate the bird and keep an eye on it. Stone curlews stay crouched down in bare fields until near full darkness, when they start feeding. They rely on the camouflage, which perfectly matches dry, broken soil. Unless you know where they are, they are impossible to spot unless they move (which they don’t when they think they are being watched). I headed around to the bridge over the Dreel Burn and to the field adjacent to where it had landed. There it was, standing conspicuously in a field of green winter wheat. I think it realised its camouflage was letting it down and it walked over to the ploughed field directly behind the co-op. There were a couple of evening dog walkers on the track that passed closer to the bird and it hunkered down into a plough rut. Luckily I had got it in the scope and even though only the top of its head was visible, and occasionally its big yellow eye, I could safely keep tabs on it. Others started to arrive and I was able to show them the bird through the scope – some not quite convinced until more than the eye appeared, as the bird began to relax a bit as it got darker. Finally it stood up and headed away from us across the field, showing itself completely. It paused for dramatic effect at the edge of the field for about a minute, showing itself to the last arriving birder who had driven for 40 minutes fully expecting to miss it. It even stayed visible long enough for the birder to stop shaking. Then it was off into dead ground and the complete gloom. Nine local birders made it in time.
It is probably feeding happily now in the bare fields and the stubbles in the area. It may well be there tomorrow – it probably came in last night, brought down by the rain before dawn, and if it is an overshooting migrant from Spain or North Africa, it may stay a day or two to feed up. The best places to look are the stubble fields and ploughed fields adjacent to the Dreel Burn, by the old railway bridge and the Co-op, west of the St Andrews road, on the north side of Anstruther. The tarmac track running west just behind the Co-op, from the St Andrews Road is the easiest way in. Stone curlews are exceptional birds regardless of their rarity and well worth the effort.
There have been a pair of raven about Crail for three days now. Erica Hollis saw one flying down the High Street on Friday, I had one at Randerston yesterday and today there was a pair at the airfield and Kilminning. I saw one of them feeding in the newly ploughed field between the runways, again being dive bombed by a carrion crow. The local crows are not used to ravens at all. So watch out for them. Their shape is like a buzzard sized rook, but with a carrion crow head and heavy bill. And they make a very deep “kroonk” as they fly. The sound of the Highlands, and fast becoming a sound of Crail.
A fine day, with a moderate southerly wind and plenty of time walking outside brought me a few summer migrants. My first barn swallow of the year high over Boarhills; a snatch of blackcap song in the woods along the Kenly Burn; a male white wagtail on the beach at Kingsbarns; two sandwich terns on the shore at Randerston; a male northern wheatear at Balcomie and a willow warbler calling from near the Doocot at Crail. You can probably work out I took the 95 to Boarhills and then walked back along the coastal path. I did a shortcut though, cutting across Fife Ness to take in Balcomie Cottages and Kilminning, but they turned out to be the quietest parts of the whole walk. And I had a raven at Randerston from the bus on the way. I noticed a carrion crow mobbing a much larger crow, before I saw the angled wings and diamond shaped tail that identifies a distant raven. This is the 4th consecutive year with a raven on the patch. From extreme rarity to breeding resident in twenty years. Overall, six new birds for the year list today. It is always good during April and May when new species arrive daily.
My first two sandwich terns of the year between Cambo and Balcomie this afternoon
So far it is not a particularly early year in terms of migrants arriving. The mean arrival date for me seeing my first barn swallow on the Crail patch is the 12th April. And there is still no sign of any significant change in their arrival since 2006 – the trend is earlier but there is only a 1 in 3 chance that this has just occurred randomly.
Arrival date of barn swallows to the Crail patch since 2006. Slightly earlier but nothing significant to suggest any effects of global warming just yet
A long walk brought lots of other birds too. The dipper was singing on the Kenly Burn. Uncharacteristically bold, staying put on its rock as I passed close by. There were migrant flocks of redshank and purple sandpiper along the shore at Boghall. The usual spring pair of shelduck close to the end of Balcomie golf course, ready to start breeding in a burrow somewhere close by. And a few corn buntings starting to seriously stake out their territories all along the way. I will start mapping them soon – so many more long birding days in the patch to look forward to.
The Kenly Burn dipper – they really are little rugby ballsThe male shelduck (female following behind out of shot) at Balcomie
Not all days can be stellar days. It was a quiet and rainy cycle around Balcomie, Fife Ness and Kilminning this morning. Just two ringed plovers, a few redshanks, curlews and oystercatchers on the beach. Razorbills, gannets, common scoter and a few kittiwakes at sea. No migrants at Kilminning, although there was a chiffchaff singing in central Crail later. The hawfinch is still about but 40 minutes standing at ground zero in the gardens on the east side of Tollbooth Wynd didn’t turn it up. I have a feeling it might be keeping well away from people and it is only visible in the gardens there when someone looks out of their window. If anyone goes in or near the gardens, the hawfinch goes elsewhere. It will surely be permanently on its way soon. The black redstart was also still about at Pinkerton.
Razorbill in fine summer plumage this week (John Anderson)
We had another early spring scarce migrant in Crail today. A female black redstart turned up in Pinkerton at lunchtime. It was feeding on the front lawns in between perching on the roof tops and fences, moving round a circuit of several houses. It kept on being chased away by the local robins. There was a good southerly wind today and I suspect it came in on this last night. I shouldn’t think it was missed yesterday: it was pretty obvious. Pinkerton looked like a German housing estate with it parading round. I should think the redstart felt the same way. Pinkerton is getting a good reputation for black redstarts. They are some of the first houses a black redstart would find after getting to Fife Ness, and the first place that must feel a bit like home.
The hawfinch resurfaced at 9 this morning, again briefly in the gardens between Marketgate and Nethergate. I went trekking around Crail again and finally found it back where I started in Tollbooth Wynd about half an hour later. A much better view than yesterday, with better light. A full summer plumage adult male, crisp and perfect. It perched in a tall birch tree for a minute before flying down into a garden below it. I knocked on a few doors locally to see if it was visiting anyone’s bird feeders, but no-one had seen it. I then climbed up on to my roof and sat on the crows’ steps where I have a good view of the whole south of Crail, including all the trees where the hawfinch had perched since yesterday. But it wasn’t seen again after about 10, and although I enjoyed the view I wasn’t able to add hawfinch to my garden list. I think I will be investing in some serious early April peanut feeding in my back garden in future years.
Male hawfinch this morning from Tollbooth Wynd – just 88 meters from my garden
There has been an easterly wind for the last three days hence the dreich and chill. But with an airstream straight from Denmark last night to divert migrants across to us. It is early season and the list of potential species is limited. But today it felt like a hoopoe was just around every corner. I tried to cover as much ground as possible, along the coastal path from Kilminning all the way to the end of Balcomie and inland at Balcomie Cottages and Kilminning. Of course it turned out to be spectacularly quiet apart from the occasional chiffchaff, although a black redstart was found further up the coast at Kenly Water. The Crail patch motto is bird in hope, and today was business as usual. It all came good this evening though. I got a message at 17:02 from my neighbour Jim Reid six doors down that he had a hawfinch in his garden. I was there at 17:04, looking at the huge orange finch in a tall birch tree. I was just considering heading back to my garden to get it on my garden list – the birch tree is easily visible from my back garden – when it started ticking (like a robin) and it and the greefinches flew off in the opposite direction. I appreciated its distinctive rugby ball shape and huge wing bar as it circled around before landing in another tall tree at the edge of the Denburn sheep field. I chased after it along Marketgate and got to the tree. I couldn’t locate it but after a while it started ticking again and it must have flown off, as I could see other finches leaving the tree and heading towards Denburn Wood or the trees on the east side of the sheep field. That was the last of it. I, and several other local birders who had scrambled to the scene withon the next ten minutes, scoured Crail fruitlessly for another hour, concentrating on the tall trees in Denburn, the Kirkyard, Beech Walk Park and Victoria Park. Last time we had a hawfinch actually in Crail (April 2016) it stayed a few days around a couple of gardens in Bow Butts visiting a peanut feeder between bouts perched in the top of the trees along the edge of the putting green. There is perhaps an even chance that the hawfinch is still about Crail – a newly arrived migrant arriving in reasonable habitat late from a North Sea crossing is likely to stay put for the night – and if so it will surface at a bird feeder tomorrow. Well worth looking out for and unmistakable. Huge finch, huge bill and bright orange in its plumage (this bird seemed to be in quite bright summer plumage). And quite a rarity for the Crail patch – only my third occasion (although 4 birds) in 21 years (2016, 2020 and now 2023); two in spring and a pair in autumn. They probably pass through Crail in most years spring and autumn but in very small numbers and we just have to get lucky to detect them. They breed in very low numbers across the UK and the British population exchanges birds with Continental breeders, where they are a much more common bird, and often in urban areas and gardens. Here they are much harder to see.
Wild Crail 