May 03: Musselburgh
Over the course of two days I reminded myself why I don't like twitching. The first reason, being honest, is that I am pretty rubbish at it. I'd seen on Twitter that a surf scoter had been seen that morning at Musselburgh, and as the weather was due to turn distinctly grim my partner was happy to take a drive along the coast to have a go at seeing it. The first problem was I'd got the tides completely wrong, arriving at low tide; the second problem was the north wind and rain had really kicked in, so we ended up doing a lot of scanning from the car, strategically placed in car parks and promenades from Fisherrow towards the mouth of the Esk. Needless to say, we drew a blank...
May 04: Seacliff Beach, East Lothian
After calling into North Berwick to put our names down on the waiting list for a fully-booked trip to the Isle of May next month, we headed down to Seacliff Beach as sunshine returned after the spell of rain. Well worth the £3.00 entrance fee, and really pleased I'd gone equipped for photography rather than taking the 'scope today - gannets from nearby Bass Rock were skimming the water close inshore, picking up fragments of seaweed from the water surface to decorate their nests. Added shag to the year list, but this was all about the birding experience in a great setting.
Tyninghame, East Lothian
Thought we'd check out the 'other' Tyne estuary for shorebirds - only visited once before, and we were close by. I'd read on Twitter there'd briefly been a spotted sandpiper at the weekend, and I wasn't expecting to see it today. However, a friendly birder stopped us in the car park to say that he and others had just seen it in a salt marsh creek, although it was frequently hidden, so twitching attempt #2 kicked in...'scope rather than camera would've been better for this purpose, but we started positively with some whimbrels on the marsh. These were flushed by a couple of other birders walking over the marsh to view the creeks - clearly seeing a vagrant sandpiper was more important to them than allowing migrating whimbrels to feed undisturbed. We spent a little while longer walking the footpath, but it remained an unspotted sandpiper for us; reason #2 why I don't like twitching is actually I hate the disappointment of failure, and would've been happier not knowing it was there and just enjoying the whimbrel. And I've already described reason #3...
So, after all that, two new additions:
104. European Shag
105. Eurasian Whimbrel