New Year (Eastern Yellow Wagtail twitch)

Bird race in Fife and Eastern yellow wagtail.

Visited Ruddons point/Shell Bay on New year's eve: a good variety of sea duck and waders etc there. One highlight was three twite that landed in front of us. A great all round site with a mix of habitats close by.

New year's day: we did a casual bird type race around Fife; first time for me; and with Graham's local knowledge we put in a good innings as it were. Though dry and overcast it was unlike the previous calmer day and was much more breezy, which cut through us at times; and compared to an IOW bird race, with both the day shorter and distances to cover arguably greater up here, it's not as easy to rack up as many species as it is there. But even so, we ended up with a respectable local tally of 76.
We started at Ruddons point as just in that area alone fifty-odd species were counted: including tawny owl (heard), woodcock(s), kingfisher, velvet scoter, long-tailed duck, and the twite that were lingering. Then it was on to several other spots... However, the real highlight came closer to the end of the day at Angle Park, where a gathering of mostly herring gulls (2000+) were on the water: and after taking some time diligently sifting through them all and naturally suggesting 'there should be a white winger here', sure enough one appeared; Graham spotted a juvenile glaucous gull in flight that headed straight for us; however, it then chose to head off towards the nearby tip rather than pitch down right in front us; (it was picked up by another birder the next day with an Iceland gull). Nice finish to the day.

Our Fife bird race route courtesy of my brother.

January 2nd: left Scotland behind and broke up the journey down the A1 by stopping at Prestwick near Newcastle to see the eastern yellow wag that's been there since the end of last year.