The Coast

 Tuesday April 26

Another drizzly morning - the default option is the north east coast. We decided to travel as far east as we planned to go, at the start of the day, leaving the birding until the return journey. The C17th harbour at Portsoy is a combination of two  small granite walled harbours. The newer one was built for the export of Herring. 

The older harbour was known for the local jewellery made from 'Portsoy marble', which is actually a form of serpentinite, not marble at all. Portsoy is well known to birders for the White-billed Divers which feed here on their way north in the spring. No birders about. Ominous. We could even park the car so that I could scope from its relative comfort - the wind was fresh, and rather cold. Plenty of majestic Gannets flying by, plunge diving for what seemed to be an amplitude of food from the sheer quantity of Gulls, Fulmars, Kittiwakes and Guillemots feeding. A small party of summer plumaged Turnstone huddled on the rocks, half a dozen Eider bobbed about in the surf. No divers at all for us to-day, we left.

Not before noticing a new for us addition to the harbour front. A small lighthouse sculpture, its mosaics gleaming in the sun. I could not get the photo straight - the lighthouse is wonky!

 


 



The usually very busy and popular Spey Bay, was almost empty to-day. We parked near the splendid sculpture of an Osprey.Then, scanned the bay for the usual flock of male Goosander. Just six of them to-day, the expected Terns and hirundine were missing too.  That gave us more time to look at the sculpture and its explanatory notice.

 


The usually reliable coast at Burghead, where we once twitched a Grey-tailed Tattler on a November weekend, was even more lacking in birds. A few Eider, Guillemots and Gannets. Where are the Divers and Long-tailed Ducks? 

 

The Kentish Glory lure was still in the fridge back at the cottage, after a quick look at Findhorn Bay, which was notable for the minimum of 16 Red-breasted Mergansers fishing together, we drove home via Broomhill Bridge. Splendid. Pam did a recce, as it's an old wooden single carriageway bridge, which is very busy. Thumbs up. Two Dippers showed, one perched on a riverside log to ablute, allowing some photography.




Moths

60 of 6 species

13 Red Chestnut

38 Hebrew Character

4 Common Quaker

2 Clouded Drab

2 Red Swordgrass

 


 

1 Diurnea fagella



 

 

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