Daughter #2 has just finished her Masters degree in Pyschology at Aberdeen University. For the last couple of months she has been diligently working on her dissertation that was the culmination of her year long course. So, with the hand-in deadline set for the end of July it was time for me to make the long slog up to Aberdeen to fetch her back. Naturally I was thinking that it would be good to take advantage of this opportunity for another sortie up into the beautiful country that is Scotland. Therefore, in anticipation of this trip I'd been keeping a keen eye on bird news as well as doing some research into what else might be around at that time of year that I would like to see. On the bird front there was a Black-winged Pratincole which was very much en route that I was hoping would stay though it disappeared in the week leading up to my departure. However, by way of compensation a Greater Sand Plover turned up in Northumberland as a most tempting alternative. With the long staying Stejnegers Scoter up at Musselburgh as another obvious target, those two were very much on my trip wish list.
In terms of what to see while up there, there was the matter of one of the few UK orchids that I've yet to see in the form of Creeping Lady's Tresses which, as it happened, would still be in bloom at this time of year. This, like its southern cousin Autumn Lady's Tresses, is the last flowering species in the orchid calendar year and fortunately it tends to be in bloom for a long period of time so would still be around at the end of July when I was visiting. On the odonata front there was Northern Emerald which I still had yet to see though it would be right at the end of their flight period. So, the plan was that after hopefully picking up my two bird targets on the way up to Scotland, I would spend a few days over in the Cairngorms area before heading over to pick my daughter up from Aberdeen. We would head down to Newcastle to stay with Daughter #1 overnight and then bring her down south as well with us back to Casa Gnome for a family gathering at the weekend.
Day 1 Newbiggin & Musselburgh
With everything planned, I set off at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning for the first leg of the journey, the long slog up to Northumberland, hopefully to see the Greater Sand Plover. The bird was reported regularly en route on RBA as I drove northwards so it was with a high degree of optimism that I navigated the numerous sections of 50 mph speed limit all the way up the M1 (when will those ever end?) before turning off onto the A19 to head towards Newbiggin. The heavens opened as I reached the north east and it was a very showery last leg of the journey. The Tyne Tunnel was partially shut for some reason so there was a 20 minute delay in getting through via the single lane contra-flow there. Finally I was out the other side and eventually pulled up in the main car park at Church Point at Newbiggin. I spoke to some returning birders who said that the bird had just been flushed though it didn't look like it had gone far. I quickly got tooled up, including all my waterproof gear, given the regular showers, and hurried off.
I wasn't entirely sure which way to go and there was no obvious stream of birders heading off to follow so in the end I chose to go north around the caravan park and down to the sea there. There was no one else nearby but in the distance I could see a few birders scanning from the other end of the caravans. I gingerly made my way towards them over the slippery seaweed-strewn rocks that had been exposed by the low tide. I could see a flock of small waders nearby and eventually got to a good enough vantage point to be able to look through them. They were mostly Dunlin, Sanderling and Ringed Plover and were partially obscured by some rocks. Suddenly an unfamiliar head popped up over the rocks. Bingo - there was the Greater Sand Plover! I headed towards a better vantage point where there were a few other birders and spent some time viewing this striking looking bird. Larger than the Ringed Plover, it looked very "leggy" and also very pale with surprisingly bleached feathers. It had a faded dark eye mask and a really chonky bill and a reddish brown breast band. Altogether it looked most exotic! I'd read up that the best way to distinguish Greater from Lesser Sand Plover was the ratio of the bill length to the distance from the base of the bill to the back of the eye. They are about equal for Greater but for Lesser the bill length is shorter than the bill to eye distance. I could see from my views that, using this criteria, this bird clearly qualified as a Greater Sand Plover.
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| Above and below a couple of heat-hazy digiscoped images of the Greater Sand Plover |
Some digiscoped video of the Greater Sand Plover
The bird was surpringly close and I was regretting leaving my superzoom camera in the car. Instead I had to make do with digiscoped images and video though the quality wasn't that great. I spent a little while taking some footage before deciding that I'd more or less got as good as I was going to get. After that I started to look around and take in the very pleasant vista. On the shore were Dunlin, Ringed Plover, Sanderling, Oystercatchers, Turnstone and Redshank along with the odd Curlew and Grey Plover. Overhead were lots of noisy Sandwich Terns along with a few Common Terns and some Roseate Terns. These latter were particularly nice to see and after a while I wandered further up the beach to look through the mixed flock of roosting Terns to pick out some more Roseates on the deck. Offshore were a few Gannets and Fulmars along with lots of hunting Terns including more Roseates. It was all very pleasant! As the sun came out I got to chatting with some fellow birders and I couldn't help but think how very nice all this was. I was in a beautiful area, surrounded by nature and lots of different birds, including of course the GSP and having a very nice chat with some friendly strangers about birds and birding.
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| Newbiggin shore line |
After an uneventful journey with relatively little traffic, I parked up in the familiar Musselburgh residential area and headed off along the sea wall to try and find the Velvet Scoter flock, hopefully with it's rarer Scoter easily visible within it. However, whilst I could see the Velvet Scoters out in two large flocks, they were so distant as to be "un-doable". I met with a fellow birder by the first bench and we tried together to winkle it out but it was hard. Quite often they were asleep with their heads tucked in, or preening or diving. It was only really when they were purposefully swimming in one direction that it was possible to get a good profile view to try and find the Stej. Apart from the distant Velvets, there were a few Common Scoters and large flock of red-head Goosander with a single red-head Merganser in amongst them. There were no divers to be seen but plenty of Eider loafing around close in shore. It was all rather pleasant apart from the lack of definitive rare Scoter views. My companion had come up from south Wales and was in two minds whether to stay over and to try again tomorrow morning. In the end he went for this option. For my part I gave up for the evening and headed off to my accommodation for the night at Haddington, some 15 minutes back up the main road. There I scored a rather tasty chinese take-away before settling in for the evening. Hopefully tomorrow would bring more success on the Stej front.
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| Musselburgh sunset, looking towards Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh |
Day 2 Musselburgh & the Abernethy Forest
The next morning I was up bright and early and arrived back at Musselburgh at 7 a.m. I walked along the sea wall looking for the Scoter flock. However, I couldn't even see them at all! I ended up going the entire length of the sea wall up until the end of the lagoons where I eventually found a dozen Velvets which were reasonably close in. Close enough to tell that there was nothing rarer in amongst them sadly. I headed slowly back towards the river mouth where I met up with my companion from last evening along with a couple of other people. The Scoter flock had appeared again - I guess they were just too far out to see earlier on. However, they were still too far to do-able and we all struggled in vain to pick out our bird. A team of birders from Yorkshire arrived and I tagged along with them. We all searched in vain until midday when I decided that, after five hours, I'd had enough. So, accepting defeat I headed back to the car and navigated through the traffic around Edinburgh on my way towards the Cairngorms. I'd just crossed over the Firth of Forth bridge when news came on RBA of the Stej as "still present though distant". Gah! The Yorkshire team must have managed to find it in the end. For one brief moment I contemplated going back but the truth was that they would have left and it would just have been me stuggling again with a too-distant flock so there was no point. Anyway, it was getting late and I had a fair way to go yet. So I accepted my dip with as good a grace as I could muster and headed on in the pleasant afternoon sunshine towards the Abernethy area. Late afternoon I arrived and headed straight towards the Loch Garten area to look for my Creeping Lady's Tresses orchid tick which I found soon enough. I'd been given a specific location for them but, once I'd got my eye in, they were easy enough to find and I found them in quite a few more places during my visit to the area.
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| Creeping Lady's Tresses |
Then I spent some time at the various dragonfly ponds, looking to see if I could score a Northern Emerald but no luck there. One revelation was the "new" pond in Nethy Bridge. I say "new" as I remember when it was first being dug but by now it was looking very nice with lots of vegetation in and around it. There were plenty of Damselflies around it including a couple of Northern Damselflies and some Emerald Damselflies. Interestingly enough, at the usual "Nothern Damselfly pond" there had been none on view at all - I don't know what was going on there.
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| Northern Damselfly at the "new" Nethy Bridge pond |
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| ...and one of many Emerald Damselflies |
Eventually, I started to feel tired and headed back to my hotel situated
in Boat of Garten. After checking in and rustling up something to eat
in the self catering kitchen, I went for a walk in the forest behind the
hotel where I found a feeder being frequented by a Crested Tit. I had forgotten just how wonderfully peaceful the forest is and I spent some time just soaking the quiet up after a long couple of days getting up there. Then it was back to the hotel and time to turn in for the night.
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| A Crested Tit at a feeding station |
Day 3 Cairn Gorm & the Abernethy Forest
One of my goals while I was up in the area was actually to climb Cairn Gorm itself. Despite having visited the area a number of times now, I'd hitherto never been up the mountain and as a fairly easy Munroe to bag, I thought I would give it a go. The only trouble was that I was relatively unfit after a prolonged period of low level illness (a sort of Long Covid) had meant that I'd not been well enough to exercise. So I was wondering how well I would rise to this challenge. Upon asking at the Ranger Station, I was told that the easiest route up was just to follow the cinder track upwards which I duly did. It didn't look that great, apart from this man-made track there was loads of ski machinery and the fernicular railway (closed for summer maintenance) so it was hardly stunning mountain views. It was also bloody hard work! A keen wind has sprung up and it was a struggle to put one foot in front of the other in places. Eventually I found myself at the Ptarmingan café which was situated just at the foot of the final ascent up to the peak.I pushed on and made it all the way up where, mercifully, the wind had dropped and it was rather pleasant. Right by the summit cairn was a family party of Snow Buntings inclusing a couple of downy youngsters as well as an adult bird. I fed some of my packed lunch to them which seemed to go down well.
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| My summit photo |
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| Juvenile Snow Bunting enjoying my lunch offering |
I did have a little wander around to see if I could find a Ptarmingan but only gave it about twenty minutes and I wasn't successful. Then I descended by a different route down, feeling rather pleased with myself for having made it up but wondering how well my knees would fare on the way down as in the past they have got really sore when descending hills. Fortunately, thanks to some trekking poles and some knee braces, it wasn't too bad and I made it down again with only some minor twinges towards the end.
I next decided to head back into the Loch Garten area to spend the afternoon looking at the various pools in the hope of getting my Northern Emerald. I'd been given some gen on a hidden pond where someone had seen a Northern Emerald a few weeks back but when I arrived there it was very cloudly. I patiently waited until the sun came out and then staked out the pond for quite a while without seeing any odonata at all. Eventually I gave up there.
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| A Raft Spider at the pool was all I could muster |
At the "Nothern Damselfly Pond" there were still no Northern Damselflies, only half a dozen Four-spotted Chasers and a brief fly-over Common Hawker. I toyed with the idea of going to Nethy Bridge to try at the "new pond" but decided just to head back to the hotel and to relax instead. There I treated myself to one of the hotel dinners and a lovely chat with my hostess. Then it was back to my room to do a bit of proof reading of Daughter #2's dissertation before turning in for the night.
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| A rather battered Four-spotted Chaser |
Day 4 Uath Lochans & Insh Marshes
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| One of the Uath Lochans |
I realised that it had been pretty full-on for quite a few days and with two long days of driving ahead of me for the next couple of days I decided to take things easy today. So it was a local trip to Uath Lochans to look for Northern Emerald, followed by a visit to RSPB Insh Marshes which was nearby. It was a reasonably sunny day and I turned up at the beautiful forested area of Uath Lochans in some state of optimism about being able to see some Odonata. However, it turned out to be rather breezy and this meant that they were mostly skulking in the bushes. I donned some wellies and went for a tramp along the shoreline of the two nearest lochans. In the process I did manage to see a few Common Darters, a few Four-spotted Chasers and some Common Blue and Emerald Damselflies but not my hoped for target. Still, in the bright sunlight it was all very beautiful and despite not finding my quarry and disovering that there was a massive hole in one of my wellies which left me with a wet foot, it was was still a pleasant visit. On the way to my next target I managed to spot some Creeping Lady's Tresses by the roadside. I felt rather pleased for having found these entirely by myself.
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| A Common Darter at Uath Lochans |
My next stop was RSPB Insh Marshes which I was interested, partly just as somewhere to visit and partly because I happened to know that there was a good wildflower meadow nearby which I wanted to do some reconnisance on for future reference. I parked up, hung up my two wet socks on the car bonnet to dry in the sunshine and set off for the nearest hides. This looked out over a vast expanse of reeds and sedge grass with some marshy pools in places. I guess at the right time of year it's probably teaming with birds but at present I couldn't see any at all! I next decided to head off on the furthest trail which incorporated Tromie Wildflower Meadow in it at the end. The walk was pleasant enough through Heather and Silver Birch habitat. The meadow itself was situated right by the River Tromie which was beautifully clear and fast flowing. A few Golden-ringed Dragonflies were hunting over the river. I also thought I heard a Dipper though didn't manage to see it. I had my picnic lunch by the river and then set about exploring the meadow. I already knew that I was too late in the year to see any of the orchid species there but I did manage to find a few Heath Fragrant Orchids that had completely gone over but were still recognisable by their jizz. There were some fenced-off enclosures which turned out to contain a couple of Downy Currant bushes, apparently a rare species only found in the north east of England and Scotland.
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| The rare Downy Currant, fenced off to protect it |
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| Heath Fragrant Orchid, completely gone over but still (I think) recognisable |
On the return trail I started to see a few birds and came across a family of Spotted Flycatchers as well as a parent Tree Pipit with a beak full of food for some hidden fledgling somewhere nearby.
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| Spotted Flycatcher |
There were lots of butterflies on the wing with Scotch Argus and Dark Green Fritillaries the main species. All in all, it was a very pleasant low key visit - just what I needed!
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| Dark Green Fritillary above and Scotch Argus below |
I headed back to the hotel arriving mid afternoon. After some refreshment I read through the rest of my daughter's dissertation - it all seemed good to my untutored eye. I then opted for some self-catered pasta in the kitchen that evening and as I was feeling rather tired I turned in early.
Day 5 & Day 6: Back Home
There's not much to say about the last two days, at least as far as is worth posting on a nature blog. The following morning I drove over from Boat of Garten to Aberdeen which took a couple of hours. There my daughter and I loaded up the car and I lounged about on the cloistered lawn of the main college building while she said her final farewells to her best friend there.
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| The university area of Aberdeen was looking very picturesque in the sunshine |
Then it was the long slog southwards. Part of the A1 was shut due to an accident so we were diverted along some back rounds through the heart of Northumberland before finally arriving in Newcastle for the evening. The next day we carried on south with Daughter #1 in the car as well and made it back to Casa Gnome by late afternoon. All in all, it had been a good trip up northwards. Whilst I'd not managed to see everything I'd hoped for, I'd seen enough to be reasonably happy and I still had an appetite to want to go north of the border again to see more stuff. I guess that will have to be next year now.
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