Saturday 26 August 2017

Seamill and Portencross :: 23 August 2017

Visiting our Scottish family, we managed to spend a few hours between the Clyde Marina in Ardrossan, Seamill, and Portencross beaches.

Unfortunately the brook running down the side of our hotel, the Seamill Hydro, has had wok done on the wall and this has changed the structure of the bed. No sighting of dipper this year. Black guillemotFrom the end of the garden I did get excited when I saw a black and white bird offshore but when reviewing photos I could see that is was only an eider in eclipse.

Along at the Clyde Marina we were happy to see shag and two black guillemots [154]. It is amazing that I see these in this little harbour almost every summer.

From Portencross beach we looked across a field contain a large mixed corvid flock of carrion crow, rook and jackdaw. As I scanned across I came across the welcome sight Sandwich ternof a single hooded crow [155] - I haven't seen one of these on this part of the coast before.

Progressing along the shoreline we didn't see anything significant until we reached the corner of the outcrop. Here we saw half a dozen sandwich terns [156] and a large mixed flock of circa 200 ringed plover [157] and dunlin, predominantly ringed plover. On closer inspection a handful of sanderling were mixing in.

Returning to the car we spotted common gull and ringed plover Ringed plover and dunlinon the shoreline, again joined by a couple of sanderling. Linnet cruised the edge of the golf course as did a small flock of house sparrows.

Sightings on the coast (30) included: black guillemot, black-headed gull, carrion crow, common gull, cormorant, dunlin, eider, gannet, goldfinch, great black-backed gull, herring gull, hooded crow, house martin, house sparrow, jackdaw, lesser black-backed gull, linnet, magpie, manx shearwater, oystercatcher, pied wagtail, ringed plover, rock dove / feral pigeon, rook, sanderling, sandwich tern, shag, starling, swallow and woodpigeon.

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