Early the next morning, we headed along the Aberdeenshire coast to the small seaside village of Portsoy. On the way, I saw my first Hooded Crow in Britain in a roadside field with a large number of Carrion Crows and some messy Hooded-Carrion hybrids. Several large skeins of Pink-footed Geese were heading north over the road and a few others were feeding in the fields.
We arrived at Portsoy at about eight o'clock and immediately set about trying to find our target bird- the White-billed Diver (also known as Yellow-billed Loon). Offshore were about 70 Long-tailed Ducks, which was a great pleasure to see, along with a large number of Eiders, Guillemots and Razorbills. A single Sandwich Tern flew past in the atrocious weather.
Eider, Portsoy
After some time, I eventually located a single Diver offshore. It turned out to be a Black-throated Diver, but it gave me some much-needed incentive to keep looking. Soon, several more Divers appeared, mostly Black-throated, but with two Great Northern and a single Red-throated. I then found a very interesting bird, with a much paler bill distantly offshore. It dived under before I could get a decent view, but after an anxious wait, it reappeared. It was the White-billed Diver, my first ever sighting of this Arctic vagrant, which has started to become quite regular off the Aberdeenshire coast during Spring (up to 12 were reported as being seen from a boat recently). It was too far offshore for me to find it my camera, so I tried to photograph it through with my phone through the scope. I think this counts as a record shot!
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White-billed Diver, Portsoy. I shaking violently with cold at the time, so I was pretty pleased to see that I had actually managed to get the bird in the picture! Needless to say, views through the scope were much better than this!
We then headed inland to Lochindorb in the Highlands, where we hoped to find the juvenile Rough-legged Buzzard that has spent the winter there. Red Grouse were abundant here, with many making their fantastic croaking noise from right next to the car as we searched for the raptor.
Red Grouse at Lochindorb. This was a fantastic place to see my first of this species.
I soon had my third lifer of the day, as we surprisingly flushed two Black Grouse from the roadside. This was not a species I was expecting to see here at all and it was very enjoyable to watch them for some time.
Black Grouse, Lochindorb. Two males and one female were present.
Finally a raptor appeared. For the first time in my life, I was disappointed to find it was just an Osprey in my binoculars, but the disappointment soon wore off as it gave some magnificent views close to the car.
Osprey, Lochindorb
Soon, a pale-looking Buzzard flew past the car. Sadly it turned out to be just that- a pale Common Buzzard. A four-hour search brought about 12 Common Buzzards, several Kestrels, a single Goosander, numerous Iceland Greylag Geese and Common Gulls and what was possibly a second Osprey. But no Rough-legged Buzzard. We then headed off to the River Spey, hoping to find some more local specialities.
A Swallow flew overhead as soon as we arrived, and not long later we found two Common Sandpipers and my first Siskin of the year. A Dipper showed very well briefly, but had flown off before I could take a picture. Goldeneyes were very common on the river, while we also had a distant view of a female Goosander.
We then made our way to the Tomintoul, where we parked. We were then taken deep into the Glen Livet estate to our overnight accomodation:
Basic, to put it mildly! The tiny 'tents'- they were not attached to the groundsheet, which caused large amounts of water to pour in- provided me with one of the most uncomfortable and the most cold night of my life. It was an experience that made me glad that I'm moving to Australia!
By the morning, the same area looked like this:
Two inches of snow had fallen, and I had woken up with my feet (admittedly in a sleeping bag) outside of the tent. The tents were covered in ice and a pool of melted snow was around my head.
On the way to the 'tents', I had spotted this fantastic roosting Tawny Owl:
Tawny Owl, Glen Livet
Before the blizzard hit us, we had been surrounded by the fantastic sight and sounds of numerous Curlews and Lapwings calling all around us, as well as four Golden Plovers, two Snipe, two Redshanks and a single Merlin that flew through.
Our main reason for spending the night here had been to enjoy fantastic views over the Black Grouse lek early the next morning. We were certainly not disappointed, as I enjoyed one of the most fantastic nature experiences of my life. That shall be covered in the next post!
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