Not quite in date order. I've been to Auchmithie where nineteen Puffins were sitting on a calm sea and then for a ten minute period many more came in from a fishing trip and flew straight to their waiting chicks.
I also went back to the Ythan Estuary where the terns were active and saw the American White-winged Scoter at Murcar (in pouring rain, BBC app wrong again!). Others are from Arbroath Cliffs, Auchmithie, Montrose Basin and my garden.
Nesting Puffin near Auchmithie
Incoming
They look close in but the rock in front of them is surrounded by water and far away
Arctic, Common and Sandwich Terns at the Ythan Estuary
Arctic Tern
Common Tern
Sandwich Tern on it's way to a demanding juvenile sitting on the beach nearby
Juvenile Sandwich Tern
Another juvenile
A few from Arbroath Cliffs, includes some butterflies
Fulmar, perhaps the same bird as last year in a well used nest site at Arbroath Cliffs, note the chick being brooded and it's size
Kittiwake with two chicks, one exercising well developed wings. In another nest a single chick was half the size and very downy while some birds look like they might still be contemplating starting breeding, or trying again
Linnet in a low morning sun
The first Meadow Brown that posed for a photo this year
Green Veined White, not over-exposed for a change!
A Stock Dove sitting on the wire behind the But'n'Ben at Auchmithie
Black-headed Gull in late evening sunlight
Maybe the first of the returning Greenshanks at Montrose Basin, also late evening
Wow! This Red-breasted Merganser has managed to keep eight chicks alive to this stage and they all look big enough to survive
An unusually close view of a Dunnock in my garden, they are always very timid and scuttle off into the shrubs
The same Dunnock looking well worn having opened up its feathers to let the sun in
One of the pesky but never-the-less colourful birds which visit my garden often hoovering up what everything else drops or discards
A drookit Starling having just bathed in my pond, it's also ringed but only with a metal ring which I can't read, yet
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