Monday 10 April 2017

What Osprey? And local ticks

The last week has been a local week.  The furthest excursion was to Pitfour Lake.  The lake is stocked with trout and is a favourite place for Ospreys to catch a meal.  Ospreys are back in Scotland.  The two famous pairs at the Loch of Lowes in Perthshire and the pair at the RSPB reserve at Loch Garton arrived in the last week or so and I had been told that an Osprey had been seen at Pitfour.  On my visit it had clearly decided it wanted something other than trout as it never put in an appearance. The trout did not get off lightly.  Several cormorants were loafing on the lake shore

Cormorants


Here are a couple more Pitfour photos

Toad

Looking down Pitfour Lake
Two more ticks have come from my morning walks this week.

One was to be expected, a Willow Warbler.  I heard one just past Parkside Farm up the road on 7th April.  I was able to get a photo on the 9th at Invernorth.
Willow Warbler in Full Song
The second was unexpected.  Two Grey Partridges flew up out of the road verge Tullikera Farm on the 6th.  Two quick for a photo though.

That evening I got another unexpected tick.   I am a member of Fraserburgh Photographic Society and their meeting night is Thursday.  This Thursday members went on a 'photo ramble' round Fraserburgh harbour.  It was dusk and the idea was to get low light photos of the harbour activities.  My first two photos were straight forward.  A Shag and a Kittiwake which are always around. 

Shag

Kittiwake
Next came a typical harbour scene with a golden sunset backdrop

Fraserburgh Harbour
It was too dark to take a picture of the Turnstones but there was just about enough light to snap the Black Guillemot - a year tick and I wasn't even birdwatching!

Black Guillemot
And when it got really dark it was back to night time harbour shots.
Fraserburgh Lifeboat returning to port from exercises
Total on list 141

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