Wallace and Gromit set forth....

Another "Grand Day Out" for Olive, but I'm sure that's not how she'll describe it. We started at the Lurgies where it was more a case of "The Wrong Trousers" as the cold wind was blowing across the Basin through my "summer breeks". As expected there wasn't much to see other than many Mute Swans and some Red-breasted Mergansers.
Having had enough of the cold, in fact "A Close Shave" with hypothermia we changed the plan from St Cyrus to Murton where thankfully it was less windy.
I finished the day at Keptie Pond where the continuing feeding of the gulls is " A Matter of Loaf and Death". The bread keeps the gulls around and they eat the ducklings, the salt in the bread can't be a good thing either.
Further round the Pond near the Water Tower I spoke to one of the keen gardeners in the community garden plots where he was suffering from, wait for it, "The Curse of the Were-Rabbit", his newly planted brassicas had been dug up and eaten!

Male Red-breasted Merganser, the Lurgies

Probably the same Murton Yellowhammer which appeared here before 

This Mallard along with two drakes followed us around Murton at very close range and are most likely escapees from the farm

One of a pair of Robins flitting between cover and the path, looked to be attending young in a nest. This isn't a crop, just shrunk down from the full frame, it came so close I had to retreat for the camera to focus

These two, a Mallard drake and a Tufted Duck appear to be paired and this behaviour may account for what I saw at Keptie Pond last year when two Tufties each had a Mallard duckling in their brood. Or had they just adopted a stray each

Sand Martin, briefly at Keptie Pond and very difficult to photograph in the wind

This Great Black-backed Gull with another flew in at Keptie, no doubt they will bring death to some more of the Mallard ducklings