Early Grebe, very late Whooper Swans

The photos below look too bright on my PC so it's likely I'll be back to this later to sort it out. I downloaded a calibration disk for my monitor and graphics card set up and like the look of the screen. Just looked on my phone and the photos look Ok but I have a black theme on Chrome so it might affect what I'm seeing.

A quote from an article I read recently.... a new post with photos tonight, Saturday



 it is astonishing, in the 21st Century, that people are still allowed to burn mountainsides – destroying their vegetation, roasting their wildlife, vapourising their carbon, creating a telluric eczema of sepia and grey blotches – for any purpose, let alone blasting highland chickens out of the air. 

Little Grebe in the old harbour

Osprey at the Lurgies, Montrose Basin

Red-breasted Merganser, I'd sneaked along behind the sea wall only for someone to walk along the top just as I got ready to get my photo!

Shelduck, at least 300 seen through my scope from Maryton Ditch

Still a few pairs of Teal around

A big surprise when I saw these Whooper Swans. Most Whoopers are already in their breeding grounds with cygnets. Two birds are ringed with yellow rings, ZAN and ZAH, I'll post details if I get their history later

Fox and Cubs with un-named beetle species, I'll search for the answer soon. This and the next photos are from Murton

This time it's the flower that's unidentified

Cinnibar Moth, lots of them at the eastward pond

Small Copper butterfly at one of my Corn Bunting farms

All of those below are in or around my garden. Anyone might think I'm a gardener, but I just sit there and try to photograph House Martins and Swifts. As you can see below, with no success

Unusual to see a Lesser Black-backed Gull where I live, this one is even on my roof

The Blue Tits won't nest in my garden, but they'll eat my food!

Flushed by the twitchy feral pigeons

One of the blasted pigeons

Nearly a good photo

Un-named moth on Olive's door

Started off this week with one of these young Starlings. yesreday there were around fifty

Two pairs of Yellowhammers recorded most days. Often still feeding near to dusk

A few of a larger group which flew off when I picked up the camera from the boot of the car

Not likely an Iberian Chiffchaff

I'd heard an Iberian Chiffchaff sing briefly when the Chiffchaff below flew out of the small xmas trees and took a caterpillar. I  didn't hear the song again as the birds were continually flushed by workmen spraying the weeds between the xmas trees. It wasn't going to be my day, no time left at Mill of Tarty, Olive was already in the car reading her book, so onward to Strathbeg.

The Scaup in the two photos at the bottom of the post looks good for a true bird, it has vermiculations in the plumage on its back and a tiny black nail which can't be seen in the photo. It also has a peak on the rear crown but probably not enough to be a Lesser Scaup, and it seemed too big.

Also seen at Strathbeg was a drake Garganey from the Dunbar Hide, but we'd arrived too late in the day again, and everything was sleeping or absent.

The Eider at the Ythan Estuary seen from Inches is part leucistic and similar but more pale than another I saw at the Ythan some years ago, it was more grey than white.

Scaup at Strathbeg, click here for video


Leucistic Eider video, click here to open

Chiffchaff, it's thought that the Iberian has been ringed, none here. I should have waited till the sprayers moved up the field instead of assuming this was the one!

Leucistic Eider duck, seen with a drake from the Inches, Ythan Estuary. (Canon SX60)

Scaup, in front of Starnafin Centre, Strathbeg (Canon SX60)

Scaup drake, Strathbeg

New Template and colours test

I'm testing a new template, basically a "dark theme" which shows the photos as large as the blog allows, that's 1200 pixels wide. The plan is to let me see which of the photos below look best, to me on my PC but also on phones and tablets. I've also tweaked the text sizes to suit mobiles and my new larger monitor.

So far it looks Ok to me, and once I get a mixture of photos to post we'll see if it works in the real world. Is Brexit, Climate Change and Trump the real world? Maybe I'll wake up in the shower and it will all have been a dream.

American Wigeon, Birnie Loch, Fife in 2017, unmodified

Gamma setting 0.9, darker

Gamma setting 0.8, darker, perhaps less glare

Carrion Crow, unmodified

Aberrant Herring Gull

Goldfinch, unmodified

Near Ben Vrackie unmodified