Sunday 20 October 2013

Foray North of the Border

A rare opportunity to finally catch up with a new species  saw me visiting a wonderful little marshy pool in the Eastern Borders at the invitation of the landowner, where we saw more than twenty Common Snipe and three of their relatives, the elusive Jack Snipe. The latter, smaller and much shorter-billed winter visitors from Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, rarely break cover until the very last moment when they fly up silently and quickly take cover again, unlike the Common Snipe (which invariably call as they zigzag wildly into the air). An unexpected and slightly bizarre bonus came in the form of an Arctic Skua circling over the site, a few miles inland from the coast.
     Earlier in the day, I managed to catch up at last with the Sardinian Warbler at the Mire Loch, St Abbs, where it has been entertaining ( or frustrating) visiting birders since the end of September. There were many other migrants passing through including Chiffchaffs, Blackbirds, Redwings, and a goodly number of Blackcaps. In the warm sunshine I enjoyed listening to a Yellow-browed Warbler, which was calling from a particularly dense area of vegetation along the western edge of the loch, but it never broke cover while I was there. Must stray across the Border more often!

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