Black Redstart and inland Red-throated Diver

   
A busy day with a morning Black Restart at Usan, an afternoon Red-throated Diver at Forfar Loch, then back out at night to see if I could photograph an Aurora. 


Red-throated Diver at Forfar Loch      Red-throated longer video

Aurora seen from north of Arbroath on 6/11/2023. The show wasn't as clear and bright as this 15 second exposure. Early on I could just see a beam of faint light emanating like a giant torch from the centre of this photo, I wonder now if this was the phenomena called Steve. "Steve is only spotted in the presence of an aurora, it is not a normal aurora as scientists suggests it comprises of a fast-moving stream of extremely hot particles called a subauroral ion drift, or SAID

 

I wasn't out long when this cloud cover drifted in

This photo shows half of a large dome of light in the north, and in the bottom left corner you can see the light from Montrose being slightly enhanced when it met some low haze. The "train of lights" off-centre is the flashing light of a small aircraft, a 15 second exposure and 14 lights in the image

Earlier in the day I found this female/immature Black Redstart which Graham and Keith found at Mains of Usan on Sunday

While at Usan I got  message detailing a Diver sighting at Forfar Loch so I went and had a look, and easily found it from a third along the north bank. It had been seen by Ron Lawie but only with binoculars and into the sun, so there was a bit of doubt whether it was a Red-throated or Black-throated. When I was there the light had gone and after taking some photos, I transferred two to my phone and the ObsIdentify app said it was 85% sure it was a Black-throated, but the photos weren't cropped and needed brightened. Back home and with more photos cropped and brightened I could see it was a Red-throated and thankfully ObsIdentify was certain, showing 100%. It's still a good find for an inland loch and if it stays it will allow people to get a better than usual view

An out of sequence "arty" photo of spider webs over large areas of the grass at Usan. I wonder if they are the results from wind blown spiders which covered my gear, hair and jacket a week before when I was speaking to Rob and Maggie at the parking area

Buzzard, it flew past so had to be photographed despite being a bit shaded