I made an early start to survey Lower Kenly farm this morning. Because it is relatively far away I usually end up there late in the morning when I am less likely to detect corn buntings. And then it takes a lot of time, waiting for corn buntings to sing or show themselves. Not today. I got 11 new territories on the farm in just a couple of hours. The farm is doing well, with double the number of previous years. By 10:00 I had reached 299 territories since May 1st. If the increase in corn bunting numbers is continuing (5% a year), then I expect more than 390 territories this year. Still a way to go and I don’t have many higher density areas left unsurveyed, but very encouraging. As well as singing corn buntings, I had a quail calling from a winter wheat field. Although quails are quite rare – or at least hard to find in Fife -this is now my fifth year in a row that I have found them on the Crail patch (compared to once in the prior 15 years). Quails might be at low density, but they like barley and wheat fields just like corn buntings, are very detectable when calling, again like corn buntings, and so it is inevitable that I will come across one or two now I aim to cover every field in 200 square kilometers.
I popped down to Kilminning this afternoon to enjoy the cuckoo that is still in residence. It was calling like a breeding bird and it has been there now for a few days. I spent my early bird watching life in the East of England in the 1980s. There were still cuckoos about, calling in the spring, particularly at my local nature reserve, Fowlmere. I used to love hearing them and catching fleeting glimpses of them flying over the reedbeds, furtively casing the reed warbler nests. Now I only hear cuckoos reliably when I go to the highlands or the west coast. It would be brilliant to have one breeding locally. Although an individual cuckoo might specialize on a particular host species, as a species they can parasitise a whole range of species – meadow pipits, dunnocks and pied wagtails are potential available options at Kilminning. You tell if a cuckoo has bred locally when you hear the attention seeking begging of the monstrous fledged chick and see the dwarfed host parent feeding it. I will be looking out for this in July, just in case. But a male cuckoo needs a female of course, and they don’t “cuck-oo”. They have a lovely bubbling call, often made when a male is chasing them just prior to mating. I didn’t hear any of that this afternoon.
It was a bit distracting today. I was cycling to some corn bunting random points – two new territories in the bag, including my second nest builder of the season – when I saw the farmer at Bonerbo Farm talking to the farmer at Airdrie. I stopped to say hello and to give my appreciation to Roy (the farmer at Airdrie) about his excellent lapwing fields. We were chatting when Roy said – “Oh, I have this bird that maybe you can help me identify – I have never seen anything like it before on my farm”. My favourite kind of challenge. He produced a phone video shot from a tractor cab by Alex Mazur. It was about 25 seconds long showing a big, leggy plover in a field that was being drilled being pushed along by the tractor and the driver tooting his horn to get it to move out of the way. But this plover had a really black belly, like an American golden plover. I was now getting pretty interested. Then it took flight and its wing pattern was revealed – black wing tips, white wings and a brown w on the coverts and mantle across the middle of the wing (like a juvenile Sabine’s gull). Now I was blown away. A black bellied plover with this wing pattern fitted a spur-winged lapwing – a new species for the UK! Incredible. The farmers both noticed that I was getting a bit excited and I had to explain it was roughly like them having just told a child that Christmas and Santa existed. Roy then explained the video was shot in a field just a kilometer away – there on the Crail patch – a first for Britain. Even more incredible. Then the killer blow. “Oh the video was shot on the 11th May”. I then had to explain that my instantly depressed and despondent expression was because Christmas had been cancelled and santa had been shot. The bird would be long gone. Worse still I was surveying those fields for corn buntings in early May and even looking at the common lapwings in that field the day before.
I put the news out on the local Crail birders network and it was pointed out to me that it was a bit of a coincidence that Britain’s first ever grey-headed lapwing – that shares the spur-winged lapwing’s wing pattern – was found to the south in Northumberland this spring and present there until the 8th May. It was then relocated in Lossiemouth to the north on the 15th May. If you draw the most direct line along the coast from the first site, with a dog leg north as you hit Fife, then the Crail area is on the flight path. I peered at the video again – but the bird had a very black belly ruling out grey-headed. Squinting at a shared video on your phone – without your glasses – is never very satisfactory, and on later frames the belly seemed to disappear. The video was shot in direct sunlight and initially straight into it so of course the belly looked dark. Grey-headed was looking like the most likely option. The clincher was when I got home for a good view and could look at individual frames of the video. A couple show a classic grey-headed lapwing: a white belly with a black breast patch, a grey head, that wing pattern and definitively, a narrow black band on the tail where spur-wings have a big thick black tail band. Not a spur-winged, or a first for Britain, but still a first for Scotland (we now trump the Lossiemouth record coming 4 days earlier). And by now I had recovered my perspective – ok I had missed seeing it for the patch list, but it was here. Still very exciting even if I didn’t connect with the bird. And great to be part of this rarity story. Grey-headed lapwings are spreading towards Europe from Asia currently but the closest place where they might commonly be found is central India. So a big deal in terms of a rare bird.
The grey-headed lapwing in the video was in a field with a couple of pairs of common lapwing. They were not happy about it and chased it as the grey-headed flew away from the tractor. I’m not sure if it hung around, it was certainly gone a couple of days later. So close, but no cigar.
The grey-headed lapwing near Crail May 11th 2023. Note the May Island top left for provenance. Full marks to the tractor driver who realised this was something special – he was watching for lapwings because he marks the nests and then avoids them while drilling so they can hatch successfully – which they did in this field.
I had an enjoyable day showing parts of the Crail patch to a birder from Canada. Nothing makes you appreciate what you have than thinking about it from the viewpoint of a visiting stranger. It was one of those perfect East Neuk days for a start; flat calm to start, light easterly winds keeping it cool, but bright and sunny all day. And the patch was at its best, gently delivering good birds and sights all day. We walked the Balcomie, Fife Ness, Kilminning loop. There were turnstones and sanderlings on the beach feeding alongside the legions of newly fledged starlings; a creche of eider chicks and mothers; several sandwich terns feeding off the beach (unusual this late I the spring); a manx shearwater and a red-throated diver from Fife Ness; whitethroats and sedge warblers all along the route and then the best bird of the morning – a common cuckoo at Lower Kilminning. Unusually for a late spring cuckoo – at midday – it was calling away like it was in the Highlands. It flew around the area being chased by warblers, showing itself well, giving me a year patch tick and my visitor a life tick.
Then to the May Island. I have written this often before, but if you haven’t yet taken the May Princess to the island, then you have missed out on one of the best wildlife spectacle we have to offer in Scotland. And it is on our doorstep. The trip was already a brilliant success in the first 30 minutes when a minke whale was sighted. Instead of a brief distant glimpse, the whale passed close to the boat, finally surfacing before a deep dive, showing its whole fin, back and a tiny bit of tail just 40 meters away. My best ever minke whale view even considering a trip to Antarctica. And then the puffins started appearing. The occasional, tantalising one to start, exciting to everyone because they are the main attraction. Then a few more closer, then suddenly they are everywhere over a period of ten minutes as you approach the island. And a blizzard of them when you land. A good number of the puffins were feeding chicks so there was a lot of activity as stacked bill loads of tiny fish were being brought in and the herring gulls did their best to intercept them. The guillemots, razorbills and kittiwakes were still mostly on eggs, so they were relatively relaxed, sitting or snoozing in the sunshine, waiting for their frantic period to start.
Some of the May Island specials today: razorbills, kittiwake, guillemots and puffin
There were some absences though – most of the eider nests have hatched and the chicks have left the island, and the Arctic terns still haven’t committed to breed this year (avoiding bird flu? – see May 24th below). There was just a single pair at the usual nest site by the landing pier going through the motions but with no scrape or egg to show; there was also a flock of about 35 flying high above the island at one point. The three hours on the island flew by – and then back to Anstruther to enjoy the close gannet flybys in the perfect early evening light.
The only Arctic terns on the ground in the usual nesting area of the May Island this afternoon and even they left after a few minutes
Migration season is not quite over although the winds seem unlikely to do anything special in the next couple of weeks. Once the starlings fledge – and they have in big numbers everywhere now – it seems like the spring is done with. I did see a late northern wheatear today in a potato field behind Anstruther. Late for me, but this bird might be perfectly on schedule, and with a flight up to Arctic Norway of Novaya Zemyla in the next couple of days, to arrive just as the snow is melting. If you draw a great circle straight line from the western edge of West Africa where northern wheatears winter (such as Senegal) then the shortest distance to Arctic Russia takes a wheatear along the western edge of Europe all the way – Scotland is not a big detour. The whinchats I tagged in Liberia (also on the western edge) that summered above the Arctic circle in Norway did this route.
Northern wheatear probably on its way to the extreme north (or possibly a really delayed Scottish bird of course)
One of my regrets as I do my corn bunting mapping, is that I don’t have time to record all the other species. Particularly the grey partridges and the brown hares. There are so many of them that if I could be bothered to systematically count them, the densities would probably be some of the highest in the UK. It does seem like there is at least a pair of grey partridges in every field: in most farmland this is not the case. Grey partridges have declined nationally by over 90% in the last 50 years. And hares are more abundant than ever this year. I counted well over 20 in one large mobbed grazed meadow at Kippo Farm yesterday.
As I check all the fields in the area for corn bunting territories, I find other things. Lots of grey partridges and brown hares for example – literally everywhere and in good numbers which is heart warming. But other species less so. Lapwings are really rare breeders around the East Neuk now and every time I find a pair in a field at this time of year it is something special. I have also found two good breeding colonies so far which is really good news. Pairs breeding on their own can’t successfully fend off the crows, whereas a small colony of a few pairs can keep them away. This morning I counted 5 perhaps 6 pairs in the newly harrowed field just on the east side of Elie, by the main road. There were several chicks as well. There were ringed plovers and oystercatchers also breeding in the field. The other colony is up by the secret bunker at Airdrie Farm. The same story – a newly planted spring barley field that was bare and fallow for a while – several pairs and several chicks as of last week. It is such a difficult conservation problem when a species become progressively more vulnerable to extinction as their density declines: a vicious spiral of positive feedback. But with a good farmer who knows about lapwings, then there is a chance to make attractive fields that bring them in to recreate a high density population. As long as the field is then managed carefully so that the nests and small chicks don’t get squashed with any planting.
One of the lapwing chicks at Elie this morning. A good breeding site so far.And a single adult foraging in the mobbed grazed pasture (it really is this bright green, like salad) at Bowhouse. A potentially good breeding site if enough birds settle there in the spring.
On a less encouraging note, there was a flock of 150-200 Arctic terns on the rocks between Elie and Ardross today. This is pretty unusual for late May. I checked with the warden of the May Island – their terns are mostly absent and very few have settled to nest compared to previous years. I should think the missing May terns were this flock. They were mostly loafing and lacked the excitement of pre-breeding birds. It begs the question of whether they are somehow deciding not to breed this year because of the bird flu risk. You can imagine that healthy, long lived birds might cue into ill birds around them at a colony and decide to avoid them, trading off a lost breeding season now, with surviving for many future ones.
Arctic tern (John Anderson)
It is sometimes slightly frustrating to have a local patch list confined to 10 kilometers. Elie is well out of range – nevertheless I had my first cuckoo of the year (a less common brown female type) and my first common terns of the year, just not my first Crail ones.
And a common tern (John Anderson). If you compare these two photos you can easily see how you can identify the two species just by how long their legs are.
It was inevitable that after trumpeting the warmer weather yesterday that it would get cool again – we had a shift round to a north-east wind, rain showers and now a thin haar is drifting in to Crail this evening. It was fairly wet and miserable this morning. I ended up with welly boots full of water as the water on the soaking long grass trickled down legs. Still the corn buntings were trying to make the best of it and singing a bit: I picked up seven new territories around Kingsbarns including my first nest building of the year. The earliest nest building last year was about the 25th May – in the same place in the magic super high density field one field to the north of the golf course (and bounded on the other side by the Drony Road). Many (most) territories have not even got properly paired up and most will not be nest building for a couple of weeks or later.
A soggy corn bunting on the Drony Road this morning – one of the first territories to get a nest started each year
Now I’m in my third season of mapping all the fields and the corn buntings, the fine scale changes from year to year are becoming more apparent. At Boghall Farm, where the magic field I mentioned above is the densest corn bunting area of them all, there are more potato fields this year, instead of winter wheat and spring barley fields. The potato fields are all currently smooth ridges of bare soil and won’t be very appealing nesting areas for another 6 weeks. The corn buntings have shifted their focus from them, moved a couple of fields along and are now clustered around the new spring barley fields. There is another very high density area at Boghall where there are six territories in a 300 meter radius hemmed in by potato fields. So the overall density on the farm is lower than last year at the moment but as the potato fields develop full, green vegetation, other corn buntings will then move in for late nests – I think at the end of July Boghall will be back to “full” density. The same thing seems to be happening at Barnsmuir Farm at Caiplie – now dominated by bare potato fields, and empty of corn buntings where there were several territories in the last two years.
Another one two territories up the Drony Road – I wish this bird was colour-ringed. I think it has been resident here for at least 3 years. It has a couple of favourite perches and is characteristically tame, allowing me to get a few meters away from it without me making any effort to sneak up
The weather didn’t make many opportunities for other birding but there were a couple of whimbrels at red sands: more high Arctic wader passage. At Lower Kenly, the swallows were clustered low over a new potato field, occasionally landing as they do in a haar to pick insects up directly from the ground. They will need some better weather – some will be fledging chicks in the next couple of weeks.
The weather has got a lot better – warmer and brighter. The wind is back in the west, although with brief reprises from the south-east. More like spring, but less and less good for migrants. The next week is our “traditional” red-backed shrike window, but the forecast doesn’t look like it will deliver. Today, it was all about the migrants that are here already. Common whitethroats, willow warblers and sedge warblers singing at peak rate, and some birds feeding chicks already. The common swifts are now starting to breed in Crail – they were back in full numbers earlier in the week as it warmed up and they have been screaming the last couple of evenings. Although they were late coming back in full numbers, there now seem to be a lot of barn swallows around – as many as I have ever seen. House martins less so, although there are a few about in the centre of Crail: the colony at Saucehope Caravan Park looks busy though as does the new sand martin colony at the golf club. The passage of the high Arctic waders continues – there were fifteen sanderlings in summer plumage with the turnstone flocks. Although both species get much brighter during the summer, with reds, oranges and solid blacks, they still stay well camouflaged, whether on the rocky shore at Balcomie, or on the lichen dwarf heath of the Arctic tundra.
Sanderlings at Balcomie this morning – the bottom left bird is nearly in full summer plumage, the others well on the way to getting their orange headsAnd a summer plumage male turnstone
I saw a female yellow wagtail beside the main road at Kirkmay as I left Crail on the 17th for early morning corn bunting survey. It made me think I might be looking in the wrong place for the nest this year. Today I followed it up and walked around the area, concentrating on Kirkmay rather than Barnsmuir. After about an hour, the male appeared from further inland and flew over me to the shore at West Braes. I followed it backwards and waited at the edge of the main farm buildings. The male soon reappeared there calling and displaying consistently at the edge of a big winter wheat field. It flew off to feed and returned a couple more times, interspersed with displaying to exactly the same little bit of winter wheat. I should think there was a female sitting on a nearby nest (wishing the conspicuous male would go away…) the whole time. If the female is sitting now then I should think the first nest failed early in the egg stage and this is the second nesting attempt. Fingers crossed for this one.
The Kirkmay male yellow wagtail taking a feeding break away from the nesting area
There are blackcaps singing everywhere. From just about every fragment of woodland, or bit of parkland between Crail and St Andrews today. I covered 40 kilometers and probably had that number of blackcaps. Their song is one of the best, loud and very melodic, better even than blackbird.
There was a lot going on this morning out at Balcomie. Basic natural history stuff for a change rather than rarities, but just as interesting. I saw my first eider chicks of the year. My attention was drawn to a big group of males surrounding a couple of females. They were displaying and cooing like crazy, in a dense circle around each female, trying their last of the season luck on what I thought were a couple of birds that had failed early and that could possibly renest. But one female was having absolutely nothing of the males’ attentions. She was aggressively pecking and chasing away any male that got close to her. Then I saw the reason why. Two recently hatched chicks with the female. The males got the message and shifted to the other female and the family made their way to the shallows. I checked with David Steel (Steely), the warden on the May and he told me that they had their first nests hatch 3 days ago and already some females had left the island to swim their chicks over to the mainland. The timing is too coincidental for these not to be May Island chicks – this it the closest nesting place for eiders and the sea has been nice and calm for them to make an efficient and successful crossing. Still it is a 11 kilometer journey for them by the shortest sea route. Although their welcome by the male eiders was a bit rough, there would be no opportunity for a herring or black back-backed gull to get in a grab a chick – this is their biggest danger in the next week or so until they get too big.
The first eider chicks of the year – the female’s priority but not the wannabe males’
As the eiders hatch so the arctic terns are just starting to nest. More info from Steely – today was the first day of lots of arctic terns arriving at the May, with lots of displaying and pre-breeding activity. And so we now have the annual pre-breeding group of arctic terns on the rocks just north of Balcomie Beach. Some (most?) of the May Island birds spend a couple of weeks feeding with us after they have paired up, so that the females can get in condition to lay their eggs – a flight from Antarctica is going to need a bit of recovering from.
A pair of arctic terns at Balcomie – almost certainly May Island breeders, already paired and feeding up with us before egg-laying
But the highlight of this morning was the new sand martin breeding colony that Crail and Balcomie Golf Club have created by the club house. I am not sure what the building work they are doing is about – a new flat area in an area of gorse, cut through the sloping bedrock and leaving a gravel and sandy bank at the higher end. The RSPB couldn’t have designed a better sand martin colony. At least 25 nest holes dug already, nesting material being brought in, and the sand martins chasing each other, scrapping and getting up to what sand martins do best. If you do a paternity test of a nest of sand martins you will be lucky to find two chicks with the same father. There is something about hole nesting, social species that causes this – availability and opportunity. When a female leaves the nest hole during egg laying (i.e. right now), its mate will follow very closely behind. You can see sand martins tailing each other a lot at the moment, even kilometers from where they are breeding – this is mate guarding to ensure paternity. But this gets difficult at the colony with so many birds, and females disappearing into holes.
Sand martins. Have a look at each of these photos in the light of a load more wannabe males trying their luck
I sat on the grass beside the colony and watched them closely for an hour: as long as I wasn’t directly in front of the holes, they didn’t seem affected. It’s a busy area anyway – below the putting green and next to the 1st tee. I have been noticing many more sand martins in the Fife Ness area and over the nearby fields as I look for corn buntings: mystery solved. A great addition to Crail. Whatever building work the golf club intended on the site, it will now have to wait until August. All breeding birds and their nests are protected by law (this is why developers controversially cover up building sites with netting in March). It reminded me that we have a great opportunity to do the same at Kilminning.
The best man-made sand martin colony in the East Neuk
I was mapping corn buntings this morning from Crail to Pittenweem. It had been busy and I had already mapped 40 or so new territories (it is always like this in early May – everything is new). I just back tracked a little to the back of the Anstruther Co-op to try to get another territory and sure enough, there were a couple of corn buntings on the wires just above the potato field where the stone curlew turned up exactly a month ago. A bird was flying above and by me, glimpsed from the corner of my eye and I thought unrealistically to myself, that’s a hoopoe. Corn buntings temporarily forgotten, I focused hopefully on the flying bird. It was a hoopoe, like a giant butterfly, with black and white striped wings and tail, glorious orangey pink underneath and that incredible very long narrow curved bill. I watched it fly over to the farmyard at Crawhill and descend to apparently land behind the farm buildings. I put the news out and then biked over there but found the back of the farm quite busy – no place for a shy hoopoe. I walked around the adjacent grassy field margins for forty minutes, hoping it was feeding there (it was but I didn’t find it). I had just put out the negative news when of course the hoopoe flew past me again. Close this time, from somewhere in a winter wheat field, flying back to the farm to land in a birch tree by the main farm house. In a panic I grabbed my camera and shot the tree it had landed in hoping I would get some kind of record even though I couldn’t really see the perched bird. I followed it into the farmyard, but again, by the time I arrived, it had disappeared. John Anderson arrived and we tried to relocate it, and then I spent another couple of hours mapping corn buntings in the fields around Crawhill, with no further sign of the hoopoe. They are like this – very difficult to pin down and they never seem to stay very long. In 21 years I have missed 3 hoopoes that were brief visitors to Crail gardens or Sauchope caravan park, and have seen just one (near Boarhills April 17th 2019) – again a brief flight and landing view of a bird that couldn’t then be relocated even thirty minutes later. But even brief views of hoopoes are brilliant in Scotland, never mind on the local Crail patch.
This may be the worst ever shot of a hoopoe, but I did just point my camera at the tree it landed in and hope for the best. With a little optimism you can see the black tail, white rump, the black and white bands on the wings, the orange neck and the crest with black tips to the feathers. Also nicely georeferenced!
As I walked around the field margins looking for the hoopoe again, I saw some orange tip butterflies. These are not so common around Crail but like the holly blue of last Sunday, they are steadily moving northwards. The males were patrolling looking for females. One was perched on top of a flower, with its abdomen stuck up, presumably wafting scent so it could be discovered. Sure enough a male appeared and I think mated, although it was very fluttery and brief so perhaps not.
Orange tip butterflies between Crawhill Farm and Anstruther today
The hoopoe resurfaced this evening in the play park at the back of Anstruther (Dreelside play park at https://w3w.co/pictures.single.lamplight ). Extrapolating the flight line of the bird when I first and last saw it, it makes sense that it was probably feeding there on and off, all day and only going to Crawhill Farm when disturbed from the park. There is a fair chance it will stay put tonight, so well worth trying the park tomorrow morning. The top of the next door old railway bridge will give good sight line if it flies to and from the farm again.
Today’s hoopoe in a more convincing view (Jared Wilson)
The first common swifts of the year came into Crial this evening. There were at least a couple cruising high over the middle of town and over my garden. It has been a cold spring and migrants were delayed by it at the end of April, but the swifts arrived predictably on time. The arrival date last year was the 11th of May, with the 9th in 2021, the 3rd in 2020 and the 9th in 2019. Surprisingly swifts have been arriving significantly later to Crail in recent years. Over the last 18 years, since 2006 – and missing 2012 when I was working in Cyprus at the beginning of May – there has been a change in arrival date by a whopping 9 days! I didn’t pick this up until I plotted the graph this evening (below) and did the statistics. The change in arrival date is statistically significant (even if I ignore the outlying very early arrival date on the 24th April in 2007) – so is unlikely to have occurred just by chance. But the biological significance – the change in 9 days – is what is really impressive. I think swifts also leave Crail later now, but that is harder to look at: how exactly do you tell when the last bird has gone, and then migrants trickle through Crail until the end of August. So there is certainly global warming and there are little egrets here in Scotland when there were barely any in England 30 years ago, and birds like blackbirds and robins breed much earlier in the year than they used to. But climate change hasn’t affected everything in this obvious way. I have detailed weather data for Crail since 2007 so I could see whether springs here are actually getting a bit cooler and later (although this hasn’t affected the swallows – see April 8th this year). Analysing weather data is a bit too much like my day job so maybe another time. I’ll pop out into the garden and watch the swifts instead.
Common swift first arrival dates in Crail since 2006. For those that worry about these things the P value is 0.01 and the amount of variation in arrival date explained simply by year is 31%.
There were still some of the migrants of the weekend around first thing this morning, but by lunchtime most had gone. At lower Kilminning this afternoon I only saw a garden warbler and willow warblers that were obvious migrants (excluding the common whitethroats and sedge warblers that are already nesting). The wind shifted slightly, round to the south-east, the temperature up to 15 degrees, and despite the heavy rain showers this morning the migrants departed. I think the most important change was the haar lifting: today it started to feel like spring again. Most will be feeling under pressure to get to their breeding grounds as soon as possible and to make up lost time. The swifts will be back in Crail this evening or tomorrow.
Garden warbler at Kilminning – one of the few passage migrants remaining
More easterlies yesterday and rain overnight. Perfect weather for scarce May birds, but not perfect weather. Haar all day, sometime apocalyptically dark and grey, and poor visibility throughout except for a brief brighter spell early afternoon. But in the murk, migrants. I covered most of the patches of trees and cover around Fife Ness. There were lesser whitethroats, blackcaps, willow warblers and chiffchaffs in most of them. There was a tree pipit at Wormiston Farm; a pied flycatcher, the red-breasted flycatcher and a male whinchat at Lower Kilminning; a female common redstart at Balcomie House. The red-breasted flycatcher is now in its third day at Kilminning. It was continuing its busy circuit around the northern bushes, mostly along the entrance road. Every so often it would stop and perch fairly motionless for several minutes at a time. If you knew where it was you could get a good view, if you didn’t then it was invisible. As I watched it, a pied flycatcher appeared. A handsome black and white male, although a little shabby round the edges – spring males are very unusual for Crail. Also unusual, a spring common redstart. I am always pleased to see any of the chats – wheatears, whinchats and redstarts, but common redstarts seem to be getting scarcer so are a bit more special. It was a good day today, with lots to see despite the fog taking the contrast away.
Migrants in progressively darker and thicker degrees of haar: top to bottom, red-breasted flycatcher, pied flycatcher, common redstart and whinchat
On Friday the 5th, when I was watching for the red-breasted flycatcher with John Anderson he pointed out a blue butterfly – it looked large and very bright blue. We wondered if it might be a holly blue. Today I saw one again today as I sat on the Siberian Thrush bench (I would call it Willie’s bench in honour of Willie Irving who built it, but he has now built so many for us that it doesn’t narrow it down) and managed to get a good view. A definite female holly blue, with a dark edged forewing, and a pale blue underwing with a few small spots on it. This is another butterfly species that 30 years ago was mainly in southern England. Fife is now the northern edge of the range. There was apparently an outlying population in the Crail area up until 2014. It is now back: a great record for Kilminning.
Holly blue at Kilminning (a female – a dark edge to the forewing and a few black spots on the otherwise unmarked underwing
Balcomie beach has the high Arctic May waders passing through now. There were about one hundred ringed plovers and dunlins, a dozen turnstones, three whimbrels and a bar-tailed godwit. All heading nearly as far north as you can go and where spring won’t start for another four weeks. The beach was also a magnet for swallows. Despite the cold weather, the seaweed flies are now emerging from all the rotting kelp washed up from the easterly swell of the last few weeks. I sat down on the beach and the swallows soon stopped noticing me, flying out of the haar all around me, just a few centimeters above the sand. Occasional house martins and sand martins joining them to enjoy the feast.
The corn buntings have got fed up with the cold weather and have decided to sing anyway. This morning I recorded 23 territories in 25 kilometers between Crail and Kingsbarns and along the railway track. On the same route last year – over the whole summer – I might have picked up about 40 territories, so this was good going. Best of all were three birds singing in areas where I have never had a territory before. And it was a good job they were singing this morning because the haar was everywhere, blown in on the south-easterly wind.
I decided to head to Kilminning after I finished survey at midday because of the wind. Migrants were starting to be reported, with a couple of lesser whitethroats at Kilminning which always seem to come in when we have the haar on a south-easterly. And then a red-breasted flycatcher was found at lower Kilminning – a very rare migrant in the spring (and not that common in the autumn, with about 1 turning up every other year). I cycled a bit quicker, although the corn buntings kept on popping up and they could not be ignored. When I got to Kilminning the flycatcher hadn’t been seen for 30 minutes. I started walking slowly around the trees, paying particular attention to the open areas inside of the canopies, low down, where red-breasted flycatchers like best. I spent an hour, finding two or three lesser whitethroats and a garden warbler easily enough, but no flycatcher. I then tried the other strategy for red-breasted flycatchers. Sit in a good spot and wait for them to come past, because they often have a regular circuit around a section of Kilminning when they are here. This worked much better. I sat on the wall of the ruined toilet block and after about twenty minutes I was watching the red-breasted flycatcher closely. Within the canopy as I expected (not so may leaves yet, making the views good) but higher up than usual. The bird was a female, although like black redstarts, first year males can look like females. Anyway, it didn’t have the bright red breast that fully adult males have in summer. Still a very elegant and nicely plumaged flycatcher. The robins were not very happy to have it around even without the red breast and chased it away at every opportunity. Perhaps that was why it was higher in the canopy than usual.
Kilminning early afternoon today – female type red-breasted flycatcher (top 2), garden warbler and one of the lesser whitethroats
I finished the afternoon with a quick trip up to Carnbee to see some gadwalls found there this morning. A rarer bird on the Crail patch appearing in only 5 years out of the last 21 compared to 9 for red-breasted flycatchers. My twitch was more successful than my last visit for the pochard. There were two pairs sitting out in the middle of the reservoir, easily visible from a distance. True they looked a bit grey and indistinct in the haar, but then that’s pretty much what gadwall look like anyway. Nice to have them on the patch and they could even breed at Carnbee.
I have been moaning a lot about the cold spring, and so it continues. May 1st is when the “official” corn bunting mapping season starts but someone needs to let the corn buntings know. I covered 15 kilometers of prime corn bunting territory this morning – as many as 23 potential territories based on the last two years’ occupancy. I had just three birds singing – all where I might have expected them. There were others around, but not singing. As far as the corn buntings are concerned, it is still early April. The yellow wagtail wasn’t singing at Oldbarns either. But there was a pair of ringed plover in the potato field. The male making low butterfly display flights and female making the soft alarm calls that they make when you are near a nest site. Last year a pair of ringed plovers nested in the Brassica field on the south side of the road (see May 15th), probably unsuccessfully because of the crop being fleeced. The potato field is a good nesting site just now – bare soil and a bit pebbly like a beach – but in two weeks when the potato plants get some leaves out it will not be. Ringed plover eggs take about 24 days to hatch so it is unlikely that any chicks appear before the potato plants make the habitat unsuitable. An ecological trap for a species adapted to nest on shingle beaches where nothing will grow to swamp a nest. Farmland nesting ringed plovers need to learn to select their fields carefully – or selection needs to act on them so the poor choosers are dealt out of the population. The former might mean that ringed plovers make the habitat leap and their populations increase like oystercatchers, the latter would do the same but probably not fast enough.
The female ringed plover probably nesting or trying to nest in the potato field at Oldsbarns
And back down to eight degrees and a north-easterly wind as the cold spring continues. I was hoping for swifts this morning but any that arrived today will stick to the lochs until it warms up again. The wind was briefly westerly this morning with some hopeful sunshine as I set off to the May Island on the 10 o’clock sailing of the May Princess. But we were soon overtaken by some very grey rain clouds as the wind changed direction. The weather doesn’t really matter on the May as long as you can make a landing. The seabirds do their thing whatever.
It was a typically wonderful visit. I was shepherding some new birders/naturalists who do my Biodiversity Literacy module at St Andrews. As neatly summarized by one of them – “learning to bird watch for credits”. But not knowing the animals and plants around you is like not being able to read, so I (and they) value it is as a bit more important than a few credits. Hanging around with new, enthusiastic birders adds value to any trip – you share looking at things for the first time and so it rekindles the joy, of say, that first puffin or razorbill or sight of the seabird cliffs stuffed with noisy, busy, interesting animals as far as the eye can see. And never mind seeing gannets really close up for the first time – huge and in big diving parties right by the boat.
It was a quick visit because of the tides. Just two hours, but long enough to get up to the top of the cliffs at Bishops Cove passing hundreds of puffins and the (very) occasional eider on a nest right by the path, where you can get right next to all of the seabirds, while overlooking the melee on the water in the foreground and the whole of the Forth laid out in the background. And also long enough to check out the bushes for migrants. There were a lot of willow warblers, often feeding incongruously on the short grass (but options for tree foraging are a bit limited on the May), a couple of whimbrels, a house martin, a few wheatears and a tree pipit. We were too early for the terns this visit, and only had two arctic terns flying down the Forth when the Princess was half way across. The real highlight was sitting watching the razorbills, guillemots, shags and kittiwakes at the southern end of the island for the last 30 minutes, close enough to hear the deep grunting and moaning of the razorbills as they flirted with each other.
Tree pipit newly in on the May this lunchtimeRazorbill
Wild Crail 