Four Birds

It has been a good day for spotting birds - or, rather, it was a good day until the fourth came along.

The first bird of interest was this dark greyish bird which was competing with the sparrows for food that had dropped into a rather overgrown vegetable bed - hence the rather poor quality of the photo. I think it may be nothing more exciting than a juvenile blackbird but we're already watching out for the Scandinavian incomers, the redwing and the fieldfare.

Setting off on our morning walk along the coast towards Dunrobin, as we crossed a rather full Golspie Burn by the footbridge we spotted one of our resident dippers. They've been away all summer bringing up young a mile or so upstream, so it's good to see at least one of them back.

The walk along the beach, with the tide low, wasn't altogether enjoyable as the number of dead guillemots and razorbills has risen from yesterday's seven to thirteen. However, as if to make up for this, ten of these pretty waders arrived, making themselves at home amid the rocks of low tide leaving....

....one of their number as a lookout. I like the way it stands on one leg, like a Maasai. They're turnstones, already in their winter plumage.

Our enjoyment of our local birdlife was marred by Mrs MW finding this under the sun room window. It's a goldcrest, a bird we haven't seen all summer, which had evidently flown into the glass with sufficient force to kill itself - this despite it only weighing six grammes. That it has some orange along the centre of its yellow stripe indicates that it is a mature male. Oh dear....