450 days

A mere 450 days for my UK list to increase by one - provided by the drake American White-winged Scoter off Musselburgh on 25th. A welcome and somewhat unexpected addition. Supporting cast was three further scoter species - velvet, common and a single drake surf.

Meagre video stills above... records at best!

All jolly good.

2018 has been a quiet start - with some nice padders though through months 1 - 3:

Glaucous, Iceland, Mediterranean, Little Gulls
Great Northern Divers (with untickable views of White-billed and a further near miss in March)
Hawfinches, Marsh Tit, Dipper
Local Ring-necked Parakeet
Firescrest
Great Grey Shrike
Common Crane
Water Rail (on the Horton Burn - urban Mega!)
Grey Phalarope (2)
Goshawk, Raven, Crossbill.

Touring the east...

Day 1 of the Scottish trip commenced with a team pickup at Newcastle (collecting a hire car for the trip) and Edinburgh (collecting the remaining members of the party).

Edinburgh was convenient in that a drake surf scoter was available for relatively easy observation off the River Esk, Musselburgh. Although quite distant and in murky conditions it only took a matter of minutes to pick the drake up - loafing about with velvet scoter. Not a particularly great view of what is typically a very bonny duck, but none the matter, a quality start. White and pied wagtail were on the river banks, while our drive into the area had also provided the only swift of the trip. One member of the team thought that a particularly distant and drab long-tailed duck was the highlight of the visit...

Next up a drive north and east, past the granite city and onwards to the delights of the Ythan Estuary. I had dipped drake king eider here in the 1980s on a family holiday - todays visit was better. Parked up at the golf course and headed over the dunes to find a very low tide and a concentrated flock of eider on the estuary.

Armed only with the 100mm-400mm lens, some ok record shots were achieved - how I wished I'd brought the 500mm! My first "proper" drake king eider, a contender for bird of the trip... Wonderful to here the eiders calling away, arctic terns overhead seals in the background noisy too!

Next stop was a short drive north to Meikle Loch - a drake ring-necked duck had been reported earlier in the week (and a blue-headed wagtail), but none were on show on this visit.

Further north, Portsoy was to be the final birding destination of the day, and a little while later were were enjoying tricky viewing of a summer plumaged white-billed diver! An incredible finale to the day, made all the better that it was a life tick for one member of the team, albeit a little distant in choppy conditions. Better still, we were treated to great views of gannet and fulmar riding the blustery conditions.

Bleak conditions at Portsoy - but a tick on view through Ian's scope

So a good start to the trip - three quality birds. Next port of call was inland, to our lodgings in Grantown-on-Spey...

Pacific Surf

A walk along the San Francisco harbour front area to Crissy Fields produced some very close viewing of pacific birdlife - including these two fellas' here.

I was lucky enough to see the first UK pacific diver on an old quarry in Yorkshire a few years ago - unfortunately I saw it within a couple of hours of the news being released, so viewing was from a distant roadside prior to the landowners giving permission to view (for a ten quid parking fee) from the waters edge. My twitch companion Mark was boozing abroad at the time, so when he arrived back the following weekend I was able to head back down the road again for another go... annoyingly we had just passed Darlington when the pager informed of the diver flying off high!! So that was the end of that... In San Francisco there were several birds off-shore, the bird photographed here was one of two feeding among the moorings of yachts. Great views and a fantastic opportunity to see the chin-strap up close.

The surf scoter was also feeding among the moorings, I just love the orange on the multi-coloured bill and the piercing eye!