Brent Geese, Wagtails and weird ducks

   
A very sunny day on Friday with photos from Monikie CP and East Haven, I was working around Olive's hairdresser appointment.

I had a distant video of a female Scaup at Monikie on the North Pond but it wasn't happy with the stream of walkers.

Also seen at East Haven, Sanderlings, Dunlin, Redshanks, Curlews and flocks of Linnets and Goldfinches, they may attract another Merlin?

Pied Wagtail in perfect light      Pale-bellied Brent Geese      Grey Wagtail bathing 

Goldeneye drake, Monikie      Courting Mallards and more

The two adults of a family group of three Pale-bellied Brent Geese, just 120 metres north of East Haven an hour after high tide

Grey Wagtail towards Hatton from East Haven

A Pied Wagtail looking for flies amongst the washed up seaweed

This one was on the only tiny bit of shore anywhere at Monikie, all ponds are full. Angling doesn't finish till the end of next week, and Denfind appears to be too deep for the dabbling ducks to feed - so there are none. Photo from my P1000 in perfect light

Back at East Haven the sunlight was allowing for decent photos of birds that were further away, no need to move from the path and scare them

That didn't stop the walkers though

Just a few Wigeon on the rocks, a larger group of Teal were to the north

I think this is a Call duck, a historic breed of small domestic duck. It is believed to have originated in the Netherlands, where the earliest descriptions and depictions of it date from the seventeenth century. It's probably been dumped at Monikie along with a second one, both have plastic cable straps, two on the left leg and one on the right, surely bad practice especially since the ends haven't been cut flush and can be razor sharp

I've never seen a grey duck before, but using Google Lens I found it's a Swedish Blue. I think it's newly released, not at the same time as the white ones, and in this photo it's resting a very full crop on the grass

A jack-up drilling rig being towed north from Dundee, maybe it's going to be used to find more gas!!