Kinneil Kerse

 A nice, short blog this one, covering a trip I had to Kinneil Kerse area with Fife Bird Club back in February.

Yes I know Kinneil Kerse is not in Fife, but the club are allowed stray across the border if they wish. In particular we were heading to the Kinneil Lagoon area, which lies on the shores of the River Forth between Bo'ness and Grangemouth. The Lagoon is fed by water from the River Forth during high tide using large underground pipes, which are designed so that all the water does not completely drain away during low tide. This means there is always an ideal combination of water and mud in the lagoon, an ideal sanctuary for wading birds and wildfowl.

You can park next to the Sewage Works (which brings back sensory memories of working for Scottish Water) and the view when you get out the car doesn't really paint an image of a nature reserve:

Grangemouth Petro-Chemical Industry

Danger! Deep Lagoons

We headed up on to the embankment that separates the lagoon from the River Forth and provides a viewpoint over the river at a point where the River Avon joins the Forth. It was an incoming tide and our first birds of note in this area was a small party of Scaup bobbing about just offshore:

Scaup near Kinneil Lagoons

Two male and one female Scaup

Bobbing Scaup

This was the closest to the shore I had ever seen Scaup, they are normally too far away to get decent photos. Despite the strong wind that morning I even managed to get a reasonable video of them:

At a distance these sea ducks can easily be mistaken for Tufted Duck, but when they are as close as this you can make out that the males have a silver-grey back compared to the black back on Tufted Duck males; and the white on the faces of the females are much more obvious at close range (not present on female Tufted Ducks). They males also don't have 'tufts'.

After scanning the Firth for a while we decided to move along the embankment and head to the lagoon.

FBC members Scoping the Scaups

Heading to Kinneil Lagoon

The lagoon area is made up of a long channel running alongside the embankment with a large shallow lagoon at the far end. This lagoon is surrounded by steep sides and there are parcels of mudflats, reed beds and marshland within this enclosed area.

Kinneil Lagoon Area

We spotted some Teal at the side of the channel and further inspection revealed a couple of Godwits (Bar-tailed I think, although I always have difficulty distinguishing between Bar-tailed and Black-tailed):

Teal on bank of channel

Teal with Bar-tailed Godwit

Here's a little video of the Teal and Godwit:

See if you can tell if they are Bar-tailed or Black-tailed.

On the other side of the channel was a bird you don't see very often, a long-legged Greenshank:

Greenshank in the channel

Greenshank

Apologies for quality of photo, it was quite far away and it was very windy. I am afraid the following video is not a lot better, but I'm sure that you can make out that it's a Greenshank:

We carried on along the embankment towards the lagoon, with the wind getting stronger by the minute. Just before we set up to scan the lagoon we passed some more Teal dabbling and preening in the channel:

Teal in the channel

Teal Preening

Teal Dabbling

Here is a video illustrating how to dabble if you are a Teal:

We finally got to the point where the channel meets the lagoon and set up our scopes to see what was on the mudflats and the shallow lagoon waters. There were waders and wildfowl of all shapes and sizes including Redshank, Dunlin, Godwit, Curlew, Shellduck, Mallard and Lapwing (to name but a few).

After a short while scanning one of the FBC members spotted a Spotted Redshank and outlined its location to the rest of the group. It was at the end of a spit of land that juts out into the lagoon, it was quite far away and you needed a telescope to really distinguish it from other waders on the lagoon:

Spotted Redshank at Kinneil Lagoon

Spotted Redshank

It is quite a rare Winter visitor and this one had apparently been 'spotted' at Kinneil a few days back, but that was no guarantee that it would still be here. Just as some people were busy trying to get their bigger cameras out to take a decent photo of the bird it decided to fly off. 

Luckily I caught this video just before it fled the scene:

We scanned the Lagoon area for another half hour or so, some Herons popped in, a couple of Roe Deer came down through the reedbed to the waterside and waders and ducks continued to flit between the Estuary and the Lagoon. It would have all been very peaceful and tranquil if hadn't been cold with a strong wind tugging at our zipped-up coats.

As per normal the birds all seemed to congregate at the far end of the lagoon, making it difficult to view them without a telescope and almost impossible to photograph them. Someone did notice that the Spotted Redshank had re-appeared on the mudflats on the far side of the Lagoon and that it had been joined by three Greenshanks. I did try to get some photographs of this little group of relatively rare birds, but they were not great:

Spotted Redshank and Three Greenshank (honest!)

The video I took wasn't much better.......... well maybe just a little better:

After a little while we decided to call it a day and head back along the embankment.

On the way back we stopped to have another look at the Scaup, which had moved further down the river and had been joined by some other wildfowl, including some Goldeneye. Here is a slo-mo snapshot of the Goldeneye and Scaup, being upstaged by a Black-headed Gull.

When we got back to the cars we had a spot of lunch, some of the group were moving on to the Skinflats area but I decided to head home; hence why you have a short blog posting this time.

Hope you enjoyed it anyway

Take Care of yourselves

Cheers

TeddyEdward

New Garden and Beyond

 Once again apologies for not doing any blogs over the last few months, I won't bore you with how busy I have been with our new house. What I did want to share with you is an insight into the birds we have been seeing in our garden and in the fields we can see beyond our garden.

Our New Garden on a Frosty Morning

Shrubs, Trees and a Bird Feeder

Scrubland and Fields Beyond our Garden

I will start with the species that visited us in largest numbers over the Winter months, and that is the Greenfinch:

A small Flock of Greenfinch ready to visit

Male Greenfinch in the tree

Female Greenfinch on Feeder

They are quite a cantankerous bird and seem to pick an argument with all other birds as well as their own kind. Here is a typical Greenfinch spat:

Greenfinch Spat

I put my trail camera out and got some images of a typical spat (nearly always over food) and pulled them together to make this stop-frame video:

Probably the next most common garden bird we have is the Greenfinch's cousin the Chaffinch.

A bit less feisty than the Greenfinch these birds tend to feed more on the ground than at the feeder, but they do venture on to the feeder if things are quiet:

Male Chaffinch in a bush

Female Chaffinch on Feeder

Male Chaffinch still in the bush

I like this "hovering" Chaffinch, which often happens as they are not too confident about landing on the feeder perch:

Male Chaffinch approaching Feeder

Moving on.

We do of course have the stereotypical garden bird, the House Sparrow. They certainly use to be very common, but I understand that their numbers are in decline and they don't feature highly on some garden bird lists. But we have them:

Male House Sparrow on Feeder

You Lookin' At Me?

House Sparrow on Fence

We even had a visit from the House Sparrow's less common relative the Tree Sparrow; a couple came in to the garden in the Winter with a small group of House Sparrows. I only managed to capture this fuzzy image on my phone before they flew off:

Tree Sparrow on Feeder (sorry a bit fuzzy)

I have seen more Tree Sparrows in the last couple of years than I have ever seen before, so check your Sparrows when you see them on the feeder.

Next up is a bird that some people still refer to as a Hedge Sparrow (despite the fact that it is not a sparrow but has been properly classified as an accentor) and has been known as a Dunnock for decades. So Dunnock or Hedge Sparrow? it matters not a jot, here it is in our garden:

Dunnock below the bird table

A well camouflaged Dunnock

From a distance the Dunnock is relatively non-descript, but close-up it has browns and greys in subtle patterns making it quite attractive. It also has a delicate and attractive song.

Now for a bird that many people consider as their favourite garden bird, it cannot be labelled as non-descript, it is certainly not subtle and it's song (although very tuneful) is not considered as delicate; I give you the Robin:

Robin at the Birdbath

Robin on the ground

Robin below the Bird Table

Robin Perching on a plant

Unlike the timid Dunnock, Robins are very photogenic, they will follow you everywhere and will come quite close, especially if you have a bag of bird seed or if you are turning over some leaves or soil and exposing invertebrates worth eating. Often known as the gardener's friend............. don't be fooled by the cute looks.......... they are ferocious predators and cunning opportunists!

When you have two Robins in your garden (as we sometimes do) you will see how ferocious they can be. It's no holds-barred when they fight over perching rights on the feeder or a prized viewing position on top of a post. If you ever doubt this take the fake robin you hang from your Xmas tree and put it in a favoured position in the garden, then head back indoors to watch how it gets ripped apart.

Another bird that seems to prefer chasing off rivals rather than sharing any spilt bird food is the Blackbird. We have male, female and juvenile Blackbirds visiting our garden and they seem to be embroiled in an endless chasing game:

Male Blackbird below Feeder

Female Blackbird on Fence

Juvenile Male on Fence

I don't know when they get the chance to feed, they are always chasing each other.

Enough about squabbling Blackbirds, let's have a look at the little guys, starting with the Coal Tit. We get one or two of these cute little birds popping into nick a seed from the feeder then dart into the nearest bush to eat it. They never stop! so difficult to photograph but I did get some snaps:

Coal Tit on bush

Coal Tit on Feeder

Slightly bigger and marginally less flighty (but still as cute) is the Blue Tit. We get two or three of these birds in the garden most days, including a couple who seem to have paired up, well they at least tolerate each others presence. 

This was evident when I recently strapped a home-made bird box to the large Tulip Tree in our garden. I had no sooner removed the ladder when they were at the box inspecting this potential new home:

New Bird Box on Tulip Tree

Blue Tit inspecting potential new home.

I always make the hole in the box about 20mm diameter, which is a bit tight for a Blue Tit, but they like to nibble around the edges to suit their size. Sort of  stamp their mark, make the house their own. Within minutes the pair of them were taking turns at inspecting the box, nibbling around the edges of the hole and testing it for size:

Second Blue Tit waiting in the tree

Second Blue Tit makes its way to the box

Trying the hole out for size

Here's a little video of the Blue Tits taking turns in trying to make the entrance hole large enough for them to pass through:

Here's hoping they choose to nest in the box.

A bit larger than the Blue Tit is the Great Tit and we get a couple of them visiting our garden as well. They seem to favour the peanut feeder rather than the seed feeder:

Great Tit on Peanut Feeder

Sorry only have one half-decent photo of a Great Tit in our garden, they invariably seem to perch on the opposite side of the feeder.

The only other tit we get in the garden is about the same length as a Great Tit, but is surprisingly much smaller, it's the Long-tailed Tit:

Long-tailed Tit in the Tree

Once again the photo is not great but it was taken through the window and the bird would not still for very long before flitting on to another branch. We don't get them visiting very often but well worth seeing them.

Every morning for the last week or so I have woken up to the beautiful sound of a Song Thrush singing from the top of a nearby tree. Always a delight for the ears and we are occasionally blessed with a Song Thrush visiting the garden:

Song Thrush in a thorny bush

A very pretty bird indeed.

Let's now look at some of the big birds we have visiting our garden (no not the big yellow bird from Sesame Street). We will start with the common and garden Wood Pigeon:

Wood Pigeon Wintry Scene

Wood Pigeon being shy (fat chance of that!)

Not everybody's favourite bird, but they are easy to photograph. Its smaller cousin the Collared Dove is slightly more appealing to the eye:

Collared Dove on the Grass

Collared Dove on the Bird Bath

These are about the only pigeons/doves we get in the garden, the Feral Pigeons just seem to fly over, not that I am complaining.

We get several types of crow in our garden including Magpie, Jackdaw and the occasional Carrion Crow, however the most regular crow visitors are the Rooks. These inquisitive birds are often found hanging about the feeders to see if there any spilt seed around for them:

Rook in the Tree

Rook on top of Feeder Table

You lookin' at me?

Very intelligent birds and always fun to watch.

The biggest bird we used to get  in our old garden was the Lesser Black-backed Gull but we don't really get gulls in our new garden. One large bird we do get is the Common Pheasant, and we can have two or three visiting at any one time. There is nearly always a male, at least one female and we've even had a juvenile male:

Male Pheasant below bird bath

Female Pheasant below bird bath.

They spend most of their time around the base of the feeders hoping the small birds drop some seed, but occasionally they have a wander around the garden looking for something to eat. Here is a video of the male having a bit of a wander:

An impressive bird and very noisy when disturbed.

Now that basically covers the birds we get in our garden, or at least the ones I have managed to photograph. We do however enjoy the benefit of having good views of the scrubland and fields beyond our back garden. 

Scrubland and Fields beyond our Garden

View across to the fields

In these fields we see flocks of Gulls, Starlings, Curlews and Pink Footed Geese:

Pink-footed Geese in Field

Pinkies grazing in the field

Sorry the images are a bit distant, but it is over a hundred metres from our back fence. This video might be a bit clearer:

This one is slightly better I think:

Okay it's a bit of a cheat to add these to my garden bird list but it's great to have the opportunity to see such birds from our garden.

That's about it for this blog, I promise it won't be so long until my next blog and hopefully it will be a bit further afield than our garden.

Take Care,

Teddyedward