South of the Border

Friday October 20

Bliss, an M and S food store a few yards from the Travelodge. Peculiar set up. A BP garage, a Wild Bean and an M and S in the same building. That was newspapers, a hot drink and lunch sorted.

First stop Loch Leven and Vane Farm RSPB. For a Pink-footed Goose fix. The visibility was poor. Thick mist over the water and surrounding wet meadows with 5,000 + Pink-footed geese grazing before suddenly leaping into the sky, disturbed by wandering sheep.Their combined musical, pinking calls are very evocative of winter marshes in Norfolk.

Good views of all three Forth bridges on the return route, side by side and so different in design. The original rail bridge is the immediately recognisable design, so long the known image for the 'like painting the Forth bridge ' saying, for a job that needs re-starting as soon as it's finished.

Until now, the sky was very threatening, portentous of impending rain, with some blue sky in between. A few drops only before the ground mist dissipated and the sun shone from a clear sky. South of Edinburgh, the day was glorious. 14C, no wind and the south Firth of Forth coast at its best. We'd seen that most of the birds were in a bay distantly viewable from Longniddry - high tide again ! Pam parked on a grassy verge so that I could scope all the birds feeding on the rocks, seaweed and sea. Amazingly, a new bird for the trip. It's difficult to believe that these were  the first Greylag Geese we'd seen all week.

It's the first time that I've seen Bass Rock looking grey, the thousands of nesting Gannets that normally turn it a bright white, have all gone south. North Berwick beach - the rocky end - had a few Purple Sandpipers amongst the Turnstones.

As to-day's journey was barely a hundred miles, Pam decided to go on to have another look at  an unrecognisable Budle Bay. Instead of the acres of mud, the bay was full of water with no bare edges. Large flocks of Mallard and the biggest number of Shelduck I've ever witnessed, even more than Snettisham, a few Shoveller feeding amongst them. Scoping was difficult. Mist had descended again, and was also rising from the water.
Preparing to leave, Pam saw a large flock of geese appear at the mouth of the bay before landing in a waterside field behind the trees. There was a farm there, so here must be a road? About a mile north was a badly potholed layby, two birders' cars already there. their drivers scoping through a gap in the hedge. We found a small open fence area and found the huge flock of Barnacle Geese down in a field. They were again, at least half a mile away, impossible to identify anything different amongst them. Ah well, we'll try again in the morning on the way home, Storm Brian (what a prosaic name for a storm) permitting.

I'm sorry to be leaving the north but, will be delighted to get home.