Category: Birds

Highlight of early January has been the presence of short-eared owls over the rough pasture S of the Tower (now happily restored to vigour after the depredations of the sheep last year, and so a refuge for voles again). Unfortunately, they have sometimes been harassed by the photographers eager for the definitive 'killer shot' but they have also been observed and enjoyed by residents like Juliet Johnson and Caroline Reekie who have reported their sightings to me. Wonderful birds to watch in that easy gliding flight, showing the palette of subtle browns and buff in the wing feathers.

A cuckoo on the fence posts near the Battery. Maybe the last of the season. The avocets in the lagoon just further on have reared one chick successfully, despite the interference from walkers and dogs.

Large numbers of hirundines (mostly swallows) gathering, early and late in the day. Also a flock of about 50 curlews in the large field. Both are nice sights and sounds, but probably the start of autumn passage ...

The avocets have raised one young successfully in the lagoons to the south. Amazing given the wet weather and the constant disturbance from walkers and their dogs. There was a male marsh harrier hunting over the fields by Oxley Dairy this afternoon, joined by a short-eared owl, presumably the same one that has been hanging around recent weeks.

Several cloudbursts produced a stream of swifts fling low over the fields heading south. At first I thought 'Oh no, not autumn migration already', but then remembered that swifts regularly travel over 500 miles a day in search of the insects they catch on the wing and fly ahead of developing weather systems. Swifts breeding in Britain quite often make day-trips to the Continent this way.

A short-eared owl has been hanging around here on and off this summer. It was hunting over the usual fields again today. It would be exciting if there were a nesting pair nearby – they have sometimes nested successfully on the Ness. There were also about ten common terns and two little terns off North Weir point fishing in the channel.

Three little terns were flying over the 'protected' area, though they weren't alighting or making any evident nesting attempts. There had been five around earlier in the season which had looked as if they were prospecting but that coincided with a spell of hot weather that brought out the wind-surfers, whose vanes were swooping all over the area and must have looked like giant raptors, so there was no chance the terns would settle then. Ironically, a ringed plover does seem to be nesting in the enclosure, which is one bonus anyway.

Two nice arrivals today. The cuckoo at 7am and the stock of the Wildlife booklet at 11am. Good timing. Along with the cuckoo there were reed warblers, the cuckoo's unwilling hosts, coming over at exactly the same time and joining the sedge warblers in the reedbeds; also a couple of whimbrel migrating through and a general sense that spring is breaking through at last.