Saturday 20 May 2023

Yellow Wagtails and singing Corn Buntings

   
A Friday evening walk along the coastal path from East Haven as far as the golf course, where I found various farmland birds and a few species of wader still hanging on, but surely they'll be gone soon. 
Even before I got to East Haven I found a singing male Corn Bunting. John Adam had seen one between East Haven and Craigmill but I think this was a different bird. I measured the straight-line distance between the sightings at 700 metres, and they're very territorial.

The highlight was finding two Yellow Wagtails, both hopped up on to one of the rails of the mainline north. Almost immediately I took a few photos through a rusty mesh fence, as the curious Wagtails watched me. Then to my dismay a train came along and that was the last I saw of them.

I've just read a report from Hatton of a Black Guillemot on Saturday afternoon. I hope it will wander along towards Craigmill so I can record it as a first sighting of the species on my Webs on Sunday.


Yellow Wagtail (Motacilla flava) the UK variant. Backlit in the evening sun.




Yellow Wagtail, perhaps (Motacilla flava flavissima × flava) the Channel Wagtail. A wise man told me "they're all hybrids" so it's partly guesswork!




The first bird again, this photo and the one above were taken through a mesh fence at an angle




Male Corn Bunting singing from the wires in a field on the Arbroath Road near East Haven











Female Linnet, Hatton





Male Linnet at the car park, East Haven






Pied Wagtail





Reed Bunting male between East Haven and Hatton






Female Skylark, casually walking away from where it probably has its nest






Swallow, with many others at and near the Hatton sewage works






Breeding plumage Sanderling, East Haven





More Sanderlings in various states of moult





Sanderlings, also Ringed Plovers and Dunlin nearby



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