Friday 6 October 2017

Pink-footed Geese and Golden Plover

Photos from Tayock halfway between the start and the hide of distant Pink-footed Geese and Golden Plovers. A count this morning recorded 58,000 Pink-footed Geese and 2 Barnacle Geese. I took video of the Barnacles but it might not be worth posting, maybe tomorrow.





Cropped from a stitched panorama photo made up of five frames that likely had 2,000 birds in it


Golden Plovers, if I'd just had a house at the mouth of the Tayock Burn I would have been much closer to these, the first I've seen this season. Instead I was sitting on the wet ground on the edge of the basin

Resilient Nature

Various photos from Montrose Basin, Montreathmont and Murton where the Roe Deer below was seen on the pond from the car park hide. Not much else there though and the pond could do with some more water to provide habitat for winter wildfowl.

Information from Murton is that this Roe has been seen around Murton for 18 months and appears fit and healthy and leads a normal life, good news.

Earlier in the week when hiding from the cold wind I watched two Peregrines from the Bank of Scotland Hide at Montrose Basin and a few more photos from a second Montreathmont hide rota trip.


This unfortunate Roe Deer at Murton has lost its right rear leg below the knee which has a healed stump and although it will never sprint again it seems to have adapted during the time taken for the injury to heal. It might be that it had an accident with a fence, hopefully not a snare, just shows how resilient nature can be. Photographed from the car park hide when the animal was at the far end


This photo shows the extent of the injury


An ungainly gate, it has to crouch and bend the left rear leg


A young Peregrine chasing a Crow just for the fun of it at the Bank of Scotland Hide at SWT Montrose. It chased the crow around for about 10 minutes on and off and was there in company with an adult, both had been hunting nearby over Rossie Spit


Back at Murton the diminished water level is making fishing easy for Cormorants, this one has caught a Perch


Same bird a 1st winter, minutes earlier flying in


Great Spotted Woodpecker from Montreathmont where a male, female and young male were present


Robin


Wren


A Dunnock hiding under the hide table during a gloomy spell on a windy day at Montreathmont


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