Up North Kids

https://youtu.be/p6DLhupXvFE?si=4GGr0WQxZLlU2nwd

Recently, I took a weeks trip up to old stomping grounds in the far north of Scotland.  Wonderful coastline and birding.  

I made my way southwards down the east coast checking bays, firths, rivers, burns and lochs.  From Sutherland to Aberdeenshire, Fife, Lothian and down into the wild beaches of Northumbria, sea duck were the main draw with thousands of scoter and eiders rubbing shoulders with many hundreds of Long-tailed Ducks and Mergansers.  There were lesser numbers of Scaup, Velvet Scoter, Slavonian Grebes and Black Guillemots.  A couple of Surf Scoters, a White-winged Scoter, King Eider and 2 different Black Scoter made up the rares.  Great Northern Divers were frequent, Red-throats less so and a single Black-throated Diver showed very well where the town meets the sea amidst the docks and marina at Hartlepool.  

I saw a couple of White-tailed Eagles in Caithness and the wintering bird frequenting my teenage haunts along the Lower Derwent Valley, alongside 9 Tundra Bean Geese.  Back in the Fens I had a look at the Snow Goose, a bird that during my visit ignored the large flock of  feeding Whooper Swans and Pink-feet preferring to hang with a small group of grazing Mute Swans; it did not impress wildly.  At Eldernell I located 3 of the hedgerow parliament of cryptic Long-eared Owls, fantastic birds.