East Coast Bird Foray by Tom Byars 27/09/09

                                                              Lesser Yellowlegs courtesy T. Byars

Four keen members turned out last Sunday to enjoy our annual Paisley Natural History Society pilgrimage to the East coast in search of rare migrants and other exotic feathered goodies (little brown jobs in other words!). On checking the “grapevine” (rare bird sightings from around Scotland) the night before, I discovered the exciting news that the long staying Lesser Yellowlegs (not the warbler this time!) at Aberlady Bay was still there and showing extremely well – hurrah! So first port of call was to Waterston House (Scottish Ornithogists Club headquarters), to find out if our quarry was still present in its current location. On reading this, some of you might think - goodness sake this is more like a well planned military operation than a casual Sunday stroll, well twitching is exactly like that and our members are strictly “hard core” material! We were told at Waterston House that the Lesser Yellowlegs was seen well early this morning and we were practically given GPS co-ordinates to its secret location – excellent news, this was going like clockwork.

Anticipation mounted as we arrived at Aberlady Bay, but not many birdwatchers seemed to be about, just ramblers and Sunday strollers (strictly soft core material!) I managed to track down one twitcher (a good pointer for assessing his I.D. capability is to closely look at his precious telescope, should be a used and abused top of the range model) and I asked him the all important key words “much about?” No need for a rolled up trouser leg and a funny handshake here! “Yep, the birds just round the corner, you can see it from the bridge but its distant” he replied. So we headed behind the toilet block and had a quick scan of the burn, just upstream from the iconic wooden bridge. I could only see four Redshanks and nothing else though. Right time to hit the GPS co-ordinates and get the bird in the bag, seems easy enough, so we walk further upstream and scan the muddy banks but frustratingly, still no sign. Throat becomes dry, tension mounts. OK plan B, lets try the bridge. We walk to the far end and carefully set up our tripods but its blowing a strong, force 4 westerly gale out over the exposed mudflats. Views from my 30ww eyepiece are vibrating around like an old cine reel, my eyes are starting to water up and Ewans wind swept cagoule is sounding like a torn tent. This is no good, time to regroup and redo PIan A again, this time with a bit more conviction. Maybe we stopped far short first time round, so we walk further upstream, past our previous location by a good 50m and try again. A bead of sweat trickles down my back and my heart starts to race with anxiety, as I sweep both banks with the bins and there standing tall, unperturbed on a large flat stone by the waters edge is the Lesser Yellowlegs. A quick look through the scope to confirm ID and it’s a relieved shout of “I’ve got it” to the crew.

An exquisite rare wader from North America, the big identifying feature has to be the bright yellow legs, which look remarkably too long for its body. Smaller than the chunky Redshanks nearby, with a more attenuated body shape, enhanced even more so by the long primary projection. Short white supercillium to the front of the eye with a distinct white eyering and thin dark bill. Mostly grey brown upper parts marked with pale notches to the tertials. Clean white underparts and streaky sides to the breast. Quite active in it’s feeding behaviour, picking up long worm like invertebrates from the waters edge with a quick striding action and fast dab into the water. The bird seemed quite settled in this part of the burn and I noticed that this stretch was really well sheltered from the blustery conditions. In fact, steady enough for some pictures.

A quick blast of digiscoping from Ewan and myself and its task done. Operation “Lesser Yellowlegs” comes to an end, amid hearty back slapping and cheerful faces all round. Time for some well earned R & R, so we head back to Waterston House and plan the afternoon sortie over sandwiches and chocolate biscuits. We head westwards along the coastal road and park at Gosford Bay, (car park number 2 to be precise), as this gives the best view of the bay and hopefully a good chance to see Red-necked Grebe. Gosford Bay is the best place in Britain to see this species – but not today and I’m really struggling to find anything of interest through the telescope, apart from some kite-surfers! We cut our losses and head along the coast road to good old dependable Musselburgh. Surprise, surprise – there is a race meeting on and the place is heaving with traffic. Traffic wardens and traffic cones are everywhere but we soon find the perfect spot to park, right next to the river, away from all the eager punters. Low tide and the foreshore are packed full of gulls. Scanning through the flock I pick up small numbers of Kittiwakes scattered amongst the Black-headed Gulls. The darker grey backs, lemon yellow bills and grey smudged heads readily identify them from the common throng. Waders are present here too, with Bar-tailed Godwits and Turnstones close by and I pick up two Knot far away in the distance. The tide is starting to turn now so we decide to do some serious seawatching. The council had recently put in some sheltered seating along by the sea wall and this was an ideal spot for our observations. We soon picked up distant flocks of Scoter offshore, waiting until they flapped wings or took flight to confirm identification – white secondaries indicate Velvet Scoter, all black wings means you’re looking at Common Scoter. Velvet seemed to be the commoner of the two, with over 50 seen but only 10 Common Scoter noted. Two Great Crested Grebes and at least ten Red-throated Divers were also seen far out. Scanning the far horizon miles out, I pick up a dark phase Arctic Skua giving a Kittiwake a real hard time. How do you put people onto a distant bird during a seawatch? Giving them rough directions onto a running commentary and it goes something like this. Right folks look at the far side until you see the tanker at 10 o’clock. The Skua’s going past it right …….NOW, flying right below the horizon, up again past the next ship. Down, and up again over an office block, past the next tanker with four white stanchions, down again near the small tug and up past Dundee, then down again past the red marker buoy, up again past the wood. Not until you hear “I’ve got it” from everyone else can you stop the commentary – just as well because I was running out of coastline! Although what was really amazing was twenty minutes later, a harsh scream of Sandwich Terns caused the group to look at the commotion. Lesley, Peter and Ewan shouted to me, the Arctic Skua’s back! Sure enough, a dark phase Arctic Skua comes swooping through not 50m away from us. Cracking views of sharp flacon like dark wings and long pointed tail projections – bet it was the same bird from two miles away. Sandwich Terns lay scattered like tossed confetti but it failed to nab a cheap meal from any of them. The best sighting of the day though was seen down by the sea wall, hopping amongst the wave splashed boulders. You’ve all heard of sea weed eating sheep from North Ronaldsay, well we discovered a Rabbit looking a bit perplexed down by the tide line!

We then walked back again to have one last look at the roosting waders, when suddenly utter mayhem ensues and all the birds are up in the air, flying around in sheer panic. Quick I shout, it must be a Peregrine Falcon, can anyone see it. No replies Ewan, that’s no Peregrine, just look above your head. There, spiralling rapidly down from the grey sky were two parachutists trailing thick red smoke and a huge saltire flag flapping between their legs, heading to land on the racecourse, amid the sound of rapturous applause coming from the stands. Please remind me to check the racing calendar next time we organise our East Coast Foray for 2010!

Species List                                                      

Red-throated Diver
Great Crested Grebe
Gannet
Cormorant
Shag
Mute Swan
Pink-footed Goose
Wigeon
Mallard
Eider
Common Scoter
Velvet Scoter
Red-breasted Merganser
Goosander
Oystercatcher
Knot
Bar-tailed Godwit
Curlew
Redshank
Lesser Yellowlegs
Turnstone
Arctic Skua
Black-headed Gull
Common Gull
Lesser Black-backed Gull
Herring Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Kittiwake
Sandwich Tern
Guillemot
Razorbill
Wood Pigeon
Swallow
Grey Wagtail
Pied Wagtail
Magpie
Jackdaw
Rook
Carrion Crow
Starling
Linnet

Rabbit