best part of the day: s'no buntings

9th February was a bumper day out to East Lothian despite a lack of the target species. There was still enough wildlife to greatly enjoy the day, although the weather teetered between the mixed sunshine forecast and the usual low grey clouds and drizzle.

Fidra lighthouse from the train

The forecast favoured the morning so I made an effort to get up early and catch the 9.39am train to North Berwick. Usually I'd get off at Longniddry and head East but today the wind was blowing from the East and the destination was Yellowcraig beach, so I went to the end of the line at NB. Caroline S had posted photos of a small flock of Snow Buntings at Yellowcraig and that was the motivation today. They are a charming, sparrow sized migrant that passes through at this time of year. And I could then return to NB afterwards or run on to Gullane or Longniddry, depending on how much was out and about in the sunshine.

em... what sunshine?

The weather was dull and grey with small hints of blue sky and I hoped things would improve. If not I'd just try to enjoy being out and getting some steps in. I was doing some jogging between walking, carrying my camera in my left arm. When I walked I clipped it into the harness. I'd dressed for running - just a couple of layers of lycra and shorts - rather than wear walking clothes. It was fairly mild but there was plenty room for improvement.

grey as buggery

The first bird worth recording today was this stonechat by the golf course. I love the way stonechats will sit up on something high (usually a tall shrub) making them very good subjects for photos. They are related to robins and seem to share that curiousity and boldness around humans. It was a day full of stonechats and they are always a pleasure to see.

greenfinches

This was the first of many pied wagtails, mostly along the beaches, hopping between stones looking for bugs and flies to eat. Although I wasn't very aware of them at the time, the air just above the sand was busy with tiny flies. They become more apparent in the slo-mo video I shot, featuring a wagtail jumping up and catching one while I was filming. Similarly to the stonechats, the wagtails like to perch on a good vantage point, often atop a stone or boulder.

For a while I was coming across pied wagtails around Leith Walk and local streets in town. There seemed to be several and they do seem to be happy to dodge in between the delivery bikes and pedestrian traffic, looking for crumbs on the pavements. However I haven't seen any recently. (But I know where over 100 are roosting and hope to get some pics and video.) This was a chance to get some photos of these delightful small birds (albeit in shit light) and they didn't mind me slowly following them around. They seem to have the measure of the passing dogs as well and I saw one sit still, not bothering to move when a black lab walked by just a couple of feet away.

rock pipit

Another regular small coastal bird is the rock pipit. Very well camouflaged against rocks, it was hard to see them when they weren't hopping about. Slightly more flighty than the wagtails and stonechats.

rock pipit

wagtail

oystercatcher

I thought at first these might be twite. They were nearly identical to the ones I'd seen a few days ago at the Esk. However Obsidentify says they are linnets and even the photo below was identified as 100% linnets. Interestingly I have since seen pics of the Musselburgh twites hanging out with linnets. Just to confuse identification! There may well be a mix here, I'm not sufficiently familiar with them to know. There were about 30~50+ flying about and slightly keeping their distance.

one of them perched here

but then (on closer inspection) turned out to be a male reed bunting!

dogs and birdwatching aren’t great bedfellows

I tried to ignore the worst offenders as much as possible

double busy!

a tiny slice of sunshine squeaks through the grey

picking out the lighthouse on Bassington Rock

pied wagtail video

I was now at Yellowcraig beach and there was no sign of snow buntings. In 5 minutes I’d be past the beach and that would be that. Instead I took a line inland just in case they were all sitting out the crappy weather in a nearby tree. Also there tends to be stonechats and other small birds in the buckthorn bushes in the dunes just back from the beach here. I came across some LTTs and they gave me a couple of photos. The coal tit was less obliging and made me work much harder.

long-tailed tit

coal tit

Back to the beach and resignation there would be no snow buntings. Instead I had fun with the wagtails, pipits, stonechats and twite/linnets.

pipit

stonechat (f)

stonechat (m)

I spent quite a while meandering about Yellowcraig

hoping the target species would eventually show up

even a very brief appearance from a goldcrest

stonechat (m)

It was tricky to tell the total number of stonechats at Yellowcraig. There was a pair flirting around the bushes. A second male turned up and was seen off by the first. There might have been more than one female but by the time they flew off then returned there didn’t seem to be a useful way to tell them apart.

also fly-by greenfinches

they weren’t very keen on being photo-ed

this, which looked like a hygiene product or a mermaid’s purse

turned out to be a cuttlefish bone (like you’d put in a budgie cage)

stonechat video

With heavy heart I realised that I needed to move. I was getting cold just mooching around the stonechat bushes and already had enough photos and video of them, although due to crappy light I did think I might do better if the sun just came out. However, it also occurred I should maybe look for other stuff elsewhere. You never know what’s around the next corner and maybe the snow buntings are a mile towards Gullane. Just as I left the sun came out and I was touch and go about returning to Yellowcraig to re-shoot all the stuff I already had dull-ish photos of. I could always retreat to NB and get the fast train home (having bought a return ticket) rather than hoof it to Gullane or Aberlady which meant a slow (albeit free) bus ride home.

linnets or twite or both

too little too late - sunshine!

Going through the next section there were a couple of very vocal robins. The one above was annoyingly silhouetted against bright sky, which was blocking me getting detail of colour or form until I realised I could use this silhouette as a benefit to catch it in profile, singing against the sunlight in the background. It makes a nice moment at the end of the assorted odds-and-ends video below.

bullfinch, blackbird, goldcrest, woodpecker, robin

another robin belting it out

Eyebroughy

geese flying overhead

there were 4 bar-tailed godwits on Archerfields beach

but I could not be bothered trying to sneak up on them for a photo

mostly just the wrong side of a nice weather day

driftwood

When I went past the driftwood patio I remembered the older lady and her whippet-like doggo we bumped into regularly here previously. A few years since I’d seen them, and I wondered with nostalgia if they were both still with us. Sort of thing you never really get an update about, having never swapped contact details, always just assuming we’d bump into each other a few times every Summer. Had to be not long after lockdown, last time. We are all getting older, more frail.

distant mistle thrush

gull and razorbill

female stonechat with furry caterpillar

(maybe early instar fox-moth or ruby tiger?)

Jut before the beginning of Gullane Bay I turned inland to head past the woods and onto the trails behind the car park dunes where the fieldfare should be. It was a while since they started to arrive here and numbers may well be going from hundreds towards thousands. On the way I came across another pair of stonechats and spent 10mins getting some close-ups. They could easily have flown off but just hopped about the nearby bushes keeping an eye on me. If only all birds were as friendly.

That put me in a fairly buoyant mood so when I turned another corner it gave me a real boost to see my old pals Olive and ? marching up the sandy trail. They would have walked right past me except I said Hello you two! One of you is Olive and I can’t remember the other. Olive told me her much loved companion was Rosie. I was glad I remembered the human name at least, even if Olive had zero memory of myself and meeting Mary and I on at least 2 occasions.

Olive was proud to admit she was 84 and that both of them were fighting fit (daily dog walks being the fountain of if not youth then at least middle age.) Although I’d noticed Rosie was wearing a muzzle. I assumed a shameful interlude possibly involving the local deer as she had had a tendency! However it was after a near death experience.

Rosie had been ill after digging up and inhaling some seeds, which grew in her lungs and required surgery to remove. The muzzle was to discourage further digging and inhaling although nobody enjoyed its obligatory wearing, especially poor Rosie.

Amazing to bump into them after several years and many East Lothian miles from both parties and yet our paths never crossing again till now. Maybe this was more than compensation for a lack of snow buntings. I had the long lens on so couldn’t take their photo until there was a bit of distance between us and even then I only really got Rosie giving me an old fashioned look.

Rosie and Olive

We had met just where a new pond has been put in. There was always a damp spot there and I’ve searched out frog spawn. But it never seemed substantial enough and all-year-round for dragonflies. Now that they have dug it out and it has filled up perhaps it might be. It is a decent spot for it and also seems to have a better, clearer perimeter, not just skulking off under jaggy bushes. I’m unaware what the purpose of expanding the large puddle into a pond was, but it might be an improvement. Time will tell. It is defo a current fashion as it is happening a lot around the place so someone must be pushing it forward as an eco idea. A couple of hundred yards on and there was another puddle-to-pond expansion.

puddle to pond development

redwing

Before I went hunting for fieldfares I stopped for a mooch at the stream by the hilly woods. Last time here and there were bullfinches, coal tits and a goldcrest. Several fieldfares or thrushes flew off as I arrived which encouraged me to hang about and see if anything returned. Shortly a bullfinch appeared and paddled photogenically. And a soaked-through goldcrest. Thank you! (See video.) There were a few others in the offing but I decided to leave and hunt for fieldfares as I could hear them nearby.

snowdrops in the woods

bathing bullfinch (m)

Last visit, hunting fieldfare, the weather had deteriorated and the fieldfare had easily out-manoeuvred me. I couldn’t get near them. Clearly I had forgotten how hard they are to get close to. On this occasion there was twice or three-times the volume of birds and they were perhaps more settled. Still shy-as-anything but because the numbers were much greater there was a statistically higher number of stupid, or less-flighty, or careless ones, and they would be my video stars! It was still very tricky to get anywhere near them but as I spent a while creeping through the bushes like a pervert, I came across at least a couple of unwary birds so busy stripping buckthorn bushes of bitter orange berries that I saw them before they saw me. Didn’t happen often; mostly a tree-full would take off and move 100 yards along to the next tree when you got within shooting distance. Even when they were perfectly safe 30 feet high up in the tallest branches. I’d get to almost within camera range (which is huge given my massive zoom) and word would go up and all but the dimmest birds would relocate. The bastards! I’d be grateful for the intellectually challenged ones, although they too, would follow suit before I got that close.

I saw this one before it saw me and spent long enjoyable seconds taking

stills and shooting video before it noticed me and flew off!

when you got closer it was apparent that starlings

were flocking with the fieldfares

difficult to get much closer than this before they few off

the air would fill with hundreds of birds

just the special ones hung around for photos!

passing traffic

a mix of fieldfares and starlings

fieldfare video

no soundtrack to allow appreciation of fieldfare chuckling and clucking

magpies below the car park at Gullane

I was wandering into Gullane wondering if I should get some food at the coop, having had only breakfast some 6.5hrs before and been out walking/jogging for over 5hrs. I also fantasised that when I reached the main road that it would be great to see the Edinburgh bus at the top of the road 2 mins away. (The time before involved a 35min wait in the cold, in damp clothes.) I turned the corner and for the second time that day my wish, my vision, materialised. The double decker was coming down the hill and I should get a move on to race it to the stop. I’d get some soup when I got home. Fantastic finish to a long day out. Due to burst mode and a too-relaxed attitude to noisy photos in gloomy weather, I went home with 1760 photos and videos. Far too many. Might be related to the fact I had a station coffee, the first caffeine in maybe 3 months! However lots of fun wee videos resulted (and posted here) which have had up to and over 200 views each on the socials.