aberlady

 

24-03-23 More walkabouts with Mary.
If we don't take the van out every few months there is a danger it will go in the huff and stop working. It was that time again and so we drove to Aberlady to walk to the beach with cameras. I had seen people posting photos online of stonechats and skylarks from along the coast so was fairly chipper about the prospects, despite the weather being very iffy when we left.

curlew

We got parked at the bridge to enchantment, and crossed over, heading to the beach. As we arrived there seemed to be a brightness about and the weather improved as we walked, but I was glad I had worn hat, gloves and a big duvet jacket.

reed bunting

greylag geese

toad and frogspawn

Every year on the first warm evening around the 19th March there is a mass gathering of toads who all appear as if coordinated, at the nearest large body of water - Hunters Bog and Dunsapie Loch in Holyrood Park, or Marl Loch at Aberlady. There is something of an orgy and lots of spawn appears. We did not have the usual suddenly warmer day this year to trigger the event and it looked from the amount of spawn in Marl Loch like a half-hearted affair so far. Toad spawn is laid in strings in deeper water, frogspawn in clumps in the shallows. There seemed to be a mix in the couple of areas I could find it and there weren't any of the toad corpses littering the place as usual. The heron will often arrive and dispatch a few.

Halfway to the beach you pass the golf course. I had heard there were stonechats around there and had been looking closely for them. I found a pair and stomped off over the tussocky ground. There was no cover so they watched while I got closer and then flew off some distance. Mary was not keen to stumble over rough ground, and so continued down the path towards the beach. I spent 5 or 10 minutes in a slow pursuit of these delightful birds.

female is reddish brown (above) and male, below 

has darker head with white collar and reddish chest

There were loads of skylarks. They fly high in the sky and almost hover while flapping their wings, calling out a jibber jabber of high pitched chirruping that is architypal Springtime audio. They are often so high they can be difficult to see. After a while they parachute back down to the ground. They are not quite as splendid visually as their song, and look, to my untrained eye, indistinguishable (apart from a head crest) from the pipits.

Mary communicating her thoughts over a long distance.
Something about me being two nice I think.

lots of bunnies in the dunes
some of the younger ones looking particularly susceptible

grounded skylark

these weren't close enough to ID
I think twite or linnets

battleship in the Forth

Mary wanted to see if her odd (swollen) knee would respond to a bit of cold water therapy. She had suggested as much earlier and I had said go ahead but that wild horses would get my trousers off. Once we actually got to the beach it was very nearly sunny and much less grim, although not super warm. I kept my gloves and hat (and trousers) on the whole time. 

I also went up into the dunes looking for wildlife and took these panoramas which show we had the whole place to ourselves. Mary is in the middle of these shots possibly in the water. While I don't think it helped her knee comprehensively, it helped her general mood and soul, the way a cold swim sort of resets you mentally. 

the twite/linnets as close as I could get

and they're off again

pied wagtail

skylark

reed bunting
which refused to sit in a good spot for a photo

Unlike the stonechats. They prefer to take a high and visible perch and will pose for a photo. Although you have to approach slowly or not at all. Or they fly off. There were at least 2 pairs as we passed the golf course on the way back. Mostly they were shot at full zoom distance although one of the males was very bold and sat on a fence post and even came nearer to pick some insect off the path then returned to his fence post. I think he realised we weren't predators and were moving too slowly to worry him. I got to within a couple of metres and got a half decent shot but the sun had gone in at that point so there is still room for improvement. 

best close-up!

Mary had continued on while I battled to get stonechat photos. Just as I was about to run to catch up this chiffchaff appeared. We hadn't seen any up until then so I tried to get a photo while it tried to hide as much as possible in the thorny scrub. The result flatters neither the bird nor my photo skills!

still a few skylarks doing their thing

curlew and wigeon back at the bridge

A very pleasant wander around the nature reserve.