I don't go to Fife often and it's usually at this time of year with another visit in early new year. It looked like it would be the last decent day for a while on Tuesday so I ventured out early in time to be at Cameron Reservoir just after sunrise, in the hope the drake Smew would be near the car park dam, it wasn't. Undeterred I walked the mile up the north track and not far from the end of the loch I got a glimpse of the Smew near the west dam, yahoo! I walked around and below the dam and out of sight of the birds and just as I moved up and into view someone spooked all of the birds into the centre, hmmm.
I quickly located the Smew and took some very distant videos and a few dodgy photos. It then flew into the corner, much nearer and in good light so I walked along slowly, just in time to see it move rapidly away when a dog walker let his dog go into the water - not my day I thought.
Moving on to better things, I drove down to Out Head and immediately found my second target a Slavonian Grebe, far out but heyho I'd got it. Also seen were two Long-tailed Ducks, Mergansers and various waders and a second Slav very close in, I just couldn't get the camera on the bird which was fishing hard and almost on the beach, we'll call that one a draw!
Sometime later two Snow Buntings, target number three appeared, and one was feeding hard against the low dunes where the wet sand merged with the dry along the tide line. It was in the shade into the low sun but I managed to walk around it and get a video.
Finding that it wasn't too late in the day I decided I'd go to Gaddon and Birnie Lochs to find my last bird, a Ring-necked Duck female which was reported on Birnie, seen with tufties at the north end. On arrival my first bit of good luck was I met a Fife birder who thought he had eyes on through his bins, I certainly did through my scope and I stayed around long enough for it to swim away from the shaded tree lined bank into some sporadic sunlight. I'm definetly calling that a success, I would have taken two species as Ok, three as more than expected and all as brill, or as they might say in Fife "yah boy sir".
Four of six videos linked from my Flickr and another tale of woe on Raptors
Smew drake Ring-necked Duck shade Ring-necked Duck sun Snow Bunting
Smew drake Ring-necked Duck shade Ring-necked Duck sun Snow Bunting
Ring-necked Duck at Birnie Loch, Fife with a drake Tufted Duck for size comparison (or it just wouldn't get out of my shot)
Again with more interlopers
At last but in awkward light
Drake Smew on Cameron Reservoir just south of St Andrews
Still as distant as the photo above
One of two Snow Buntings at Out Head, St Andrews just where the Eden Estuary meets the sea
Two Dunlin and one Ringed Plover, one more Dunlin and around twenty plovers were just out of shot
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