If you have never been, Musselburgh is the ideal place for winter bird-watching. At this time of year many of the birds we have enjoyed over the spring, summer and autumn have flown south for the winter so a trip to the hills, rivers or woodlands can prove relatively fruitless. A trip to the coast or the estuaries of major rivers is however the place to see many of the birds which migrate from further north to spend winter in balmy Scotland (well it's balmy to them!!). This includes several species of ducks, grebes, geese, swans and wading birds ('waders' to use the proper birding term).
Normally if you want to go and see waders you would time your visit to co-incide with a receding tide (i.e. after high tide) as that is when the waders return from their inland roosts to feed on the many beasties, crustaceans, etc. that the tide leaves behind on its way out. This unfortunately is not the ideal time to see grebes and ducks on the sea as the tide goes out taking them further away from you. At Musselburgh however this does not matter for two reasons: firstly because there is a nice long sea wall which protrudes into the river Forth making the sea nearby whether it be high or low tide; and secondly because there are a couple of man-made lagoons/scrapes inland of the sea wall where the waders congregate to sit-out the high tides.
Enough of the technicalities, just trust me Musselburgh lagoons and sea wall are well worth a visit. So what did Grant and I see when we went there, I hear you ask?
We went to the lagoons first and took up residence in one of the hides provided. When I say hide I don't mean the snug little wooden hides you get at most reserves, no I mean a WW2 concrete bunker without a roof and with cold wet concrete benches (tip no.1: take something warm and waterproof to sit on.......I used my gloves and my hands were freezing!)
This concrete bunker did however provide us with great views of Lapwing, Redshank, Black-headed Gulls, Teal, Widgeon, Mallard, etc. unfortunately I did not take my camera so images will be limited to what I captured on my trusty camcorder.
First of all here is a picture 'through the WW2 bunker window' in case you thought I was kidding:
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| View of Lagoon from Bunker |
The next clip is of a Redshank feeding on the Lagoon:
Redshank are medium-sized waders with medium-sized bills and medium-length legs. They would be a lot harder to identify if they didn't have bright red legs and weren't conveniently called Redshanks (I know that doesn't help if they are wading in deep water).
The length and shape of a wader's bill is not only one of the keys to identifying them it also tells you a lot about what they feed on. Waders with short bills such as Lapwing and Ringed Plover feed on insects and crustaceans on the surface, which they find by rummaging around in seaweed or by turning over small stones ( a wader called a Turnstone is a perfect example of this......but we didn't see any of them). Waders with long bills such as Curlew and Bar-tailed Godwit feed on molluscs and worms which have buried themselves deep in the wet sand or silt until the tide comes back and covers them. These waders probe their bills right down into the sand/silt and haul out the hidden mollusc/worm/beastie and then gobble them up.
A wader with a medium-sized bill such as the Redshank does a bit of both and is therefore quite adaptable.
The following clip is of a pair of Widgeon on the Lagoon (male and female):
The best way to describe Widgeon so you can identify them is that the male has a reddy-brown head on which someone has painted a cream go-faster stripe right down its centre parting (not so obvious in the clip above I'm afraid). The female is much like other female ducks.......... a bit drab (sorry ladies) and the best way to identify a female Widgeon is............it will be the one swimming alongside a male Widgeon.
I apologise in advance for the quality of the next clip, but as I said earlier it was cold and my hands were freezing as I had to use my gloves as a cushion. It is supposed to be a view of some Lapwing, Teal and a few gulls but they were also avoiding the cold wind by hunkering-down so it's not the best view of them.......brrr!!!:
After enjoying the delights of the concrete hide over-looking the lagoons Grant and I decided to brave the elements and head towards the sea wall to see if there was anything of interest there. It actually felt warmer out in the open than it did in the hide, maybe because the sun still had some heat in it, but more likely because we were moving about rather than sitting still in a cold, concrete bunker.
After 5 minutes of scanning the sea looking for birds (other than gulls) we were not disappointed as we managed to spot a Great-crested Grebe, some Guillemots, a Long-tail Duck and a Velvet Scoter (nothing to do with Mods!).
Some of these birds you may be familiar with such as the Great-crested Grebe which is relatively common on inland lochs and lakes in the spring/summer (Linlithgow Loch is great place to see these birds in their magnificent breeding plumage). Guillemots are also quite common around the Forth estuary and on the islands dotted around there.
Velvet Scoters are probably less familiar to you, unless of course you are a keen birder willing to brave the elements, as they are normally only seen around our coastal waters and estuaries in Winter. They are not the prettiest of the sea ducks (unfortunately I was unable to get a photo/film of the one we saw) and can be best described as a black duck with white eye-liner and a lumpy yellow beak (Google them and see if you agree!).
The Long-tailed Duck is however a much more elegant duck (particularly the male) and I did manage to get a short film of it before it dived and disappeared (yet again). It is not the best of clips and does not do the bird justice, but in my defence it was quite far out and didn't stay above the surface for very long before diving:
We were starting to get cold again so we headed to the shelter of my car and drove to our next destination Aberlady Bay. We did have a short stop-off at Longniddry Bents (don't titter!) for a bite of lunch in the car. It contains several parking areas dotted amongst the dunes and we chose a spot where we could see the sea (but apart from some hungry gulls that was about all we saw). The place was full of cars (dog-walkers and sea-watchers mainly) and there was even a van selling fresh ground coffee!! we didn't stay long there, even though it was nice and warm in the car.
When we arrived at Aberlady Bay nature reserve there were dozens of cars there as well but we were fortunate enough to find a space we could squeeze into, although it did mean parking halfway up an embankment. There were a few dog-walkers there as well but most people were just out walking and enjoying the fresh, dry and slightly sunny day.
We decided to head out to the sandy prominent at the far end of the reserve, even though the light was fading fast. As we crossed the bridge which spans the mouth of the Peffer Burn we spotted several waders on the mudflats including a Curlew which I managed to capture on my camcorder:
Most people can easily identify a Curlew with its long curved bill. It is quite a large wader with long legs and it can wade in relatively deep water whilst probing the silt for moluscs and worms hidden underneath.
By the time we reached the sand dunes at the far end of the reserve the light had faded considerably and the wind had increased making it quite cold so we did not dwell long there. As we looked along the beach to see if there were any birds of interest we notice a small group of waders scuttling along the shore-line.
These were Sanderling, which is a bird Grant hadn't seen before so it made our trip out to the far end of the reserve worthwhile. Sanderling are great little waders to watch as they are so funny. They rush towards the sea as the waves go out and rush back in again when the waves come in. They are just like a bunch of kids who don't want to get their feet wet. Once again I didn't manage to get a film of this activity as it was too windy and they were too far away but if you want to see how funny they can be there are plenty of good clips on U-tube, or just Google 'Sanderlings running'. Alternatively try the link below:
That's me finished my ramblings for now, I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and I'll try and come up with some interesting blog posts in 2013.
Cheers
TeddyEdward
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