Wednesday 20 July 2016

Most from the coast, explanation below......

As I appear to have hay fever for the first time in my life (old age) I've tried to stay on the coast to avoid pollen.

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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