You can’t always get what you wa-ant…..
Sometimes, its good to treat yourself. Not in the spa day pampering sense, or in extravagant purchases- my clothes are predominantly from ASDA, or whatever other people buy me as gifts. Instead, I was thinking its good to have a ‘drop everything’ day out. A big day, a long day. A day worth looking forward to all week. A day which takes some planning, logistics, where a lot can go wrong (and in my case often does.) A day, where you’d think, a sensible birder would make sure offered the highest reward to risk ration you could get.
So, keeping this in mind I spent the week preparing for my trip to Aberlady. That’s right, Aberlady. Avid readers will recall that this is the big reserve in Lothian which I have a problematic relationship with. A place which it seems holds a bitter, and undeserved, hatred for me. A hatred which is occasionally reciprocated. Surely, Green Sand, if you’re going birding in the East, there are much better places in Lothian to visit?
Undoubtedly, but for whatever reason I set my sights on Aberlady. Saturday began reasonably enough by only sleeping in for an hour. A positive result by my standards. Train journey to Edinburgh was uneventful, bar having to listen to rugby bores on their way to watch Scotland v Italy. Edinburgh city centre was reasonably busy, but I managed to catch the bus to Aberlady very quicky. I settled down for the hour or so journey, deliberately staying off social media lest I see something exciting at Musselburgh, or worse, at Aberlady that would be both twitchable, and dippable.
Arriving at Aberlady I took my time setting up my scope, opting to soak in the atmosphere, the sights, smells, the breeze on my skin, and the gentle warmth of the sun. I knew I was there for the day, and wanted an immersive experience. The tide was far out, but a scan of the mud from the car park got me redshank, shelduck, curlew and oycs in good numbers. No golden plover that I could see, and no geese. Its not as if Aberlady is famed for its geese….. A walk across the rickety (to me) bridge made me reconsider my life choices, but eventually I was back on terra firma. A further scan of the mud didn’t get anything new, and a bit of bird listening quickly got me bullfinch from the bushes. Not too shabby a start.
A few hundred yards further on I got speaking to a birder who was on his way off the reserve. Usual questions about what we’d each seen, with the usual dire “nah, its quiet.” A massed flock of fieldfare had taken off shortly before, apparently, and headed the opposite direction to where I was going. Never mind being here 10 minutes ago, I should’ve been there 100 yards ago. I wasn’t overly- concerned as I knew that the fieldfare feasted on sea buckthorn berries, and there were plenty of bushes along the path to the beach. This knowledge was tempered by the experience that most years, though, I tend to get mildly- unsatisfying fieldfare views at Aberlady.
This year, though, I was in for a treat. I had paused to scan the fields with my scope, and a walker stopped to chat. A keen birder herself, she lived in the village, and Aberlady was her patch. Discussed the things we’d seen, the changes she’d noticed in bird behaviour locally, and as we did so, we heard the familiar chacking of a fieldfare. We said our goodbyes, and I focused on finding the source of the noise. Before long I had a stunning fieldfare in the scope, caught in bright sunlight, with every feather, it seemed, caught in stark contrast against the browns of the bushes. I mused as I watched it gorge itself that it looks like its plumage is designed by a deranged civil service committee, with multiple sources insisting on having an input but it somehow works. A stunning looking bird, and a year tick at that. Already the trip was worthwhile just for the view.
The rest of the walk to the beach was uneventful, bar very active corvids. Lots and lots of walkers, not all of whom blessed with social skills, and I took the path to skirt round the side of the dunes. A longer walk, but quieter, and it avoided a steep climb up and down a dune, something that isn’t easy with the scope. The longer route also afforded me a sense of wildness (as much as Aberlady can be) and heightened my senses for birds suddenly erupting from the undergrowth and flying off into the distance. The walk was quiet, bar a possible (and therefore untickable) meadow pipit erupting. As I followed it into the distance (more accurately, I tried to find it against the sky) I caught sight of a group of redwing in the trees, offering the same great views that their Fieldfare cousin had done earlier.
Each year Aberlady is my banker, my guarantee for a sanderling. I’ve not often had much luck seawatching, but its been reliable for some things that are within my limited seaside skillset. With the tide being still far out, the waterline was at my scope’s limit. A scan showed me quickly that there was not a huge amount of birdlife about. My eyes were drawn to a flock of oystercatcher to the Southwest. Momentarily, a bird flew in, and then out. The brief glimpse made me suspect it was a sanderling, but I couldn’t be sire. Unworried, I knew it was a big beach with a lot of territory to walk before reaching Gullane Point.
On the way to Edinburgh I had found time to for some reading- it helped drown out the rugger types. Guy Shrubsole’s Lost Rainforests of Britain (highly recommended incidentally) includes a bit where he advocates looking at all aspects of the wild, not just a narrow focus. With this in mind, I found myself fascinated by the myriad of different shells, and the sheer number of razor clams. I wondered whether this was an unusually high count, a low count, or just plain average. The limits of my knowledge of the natural world were laid bare once again.
Returning to what I did know, I scanned the water’s edge for movement. Bar good numbers of corvids, I could find nothing on the beach. Scanning further out I saw the familiar outline of eider. Plenty of eider, but this is Lothian, which could be renamed Eiderland. A further look got me the unmistakeable shape of long- tailed duck, a squint and some averted vision identified it as a female. A larger flock of black ducks further out were beyond the range of the scope. I guessed scoter, of some description, and I knew that the tide would eventually bring them in closer.
The sheer scale of the beach at low tide is difficult to put into words, and I knew from experience that the rocky promontory at Gullane Point was a long, hard slog through the sand. Stopping periodically to scan the water, I eventually picked out both common and velvet scoter on the water. The distance made the views slightly disappointing, but the identification more of an achievement. The curving of the beach and the slowly incoming tide making viewing that little bit easier, making all the difference between a possible, probable, and definite.
I reached my destination utterly without sanderling, feeling a mixture of annoyance, disappointment and a little consternation. So much for guarantees…..
A couple of teenagers were relaxing on my favoured high-spot on the promontory, and I made do with a slightly lower, slightly less flat place, which still offered views out to sea and around the headland in the direction of Fidra. Despite the time of year and the fact it was mid- afternoon the weather remained mild, and I discarded my heavy jacket. Scanning first out to sea I again got the common and velvet scoter, albeit they remained tantalisingly distant. Faintly in the distance I could hear the sound of geese, but could not get sight of them, and the noise faded.
Eider, unsurprisingly, were there in good numbers, and as I scanned them a flash of white zoomed past me. A male LT duck had flown round the headland. Flapping in the water caught my eye, and I scanned round to find a shag, now floating serenely, its crest upraised to rule out any mis- identification. Year tick 3, it was close enough that I could absorb all the subtlety of its plumage and the individual feathers of its crest. A flock of small white things then zoomed past, either sanderling or dunlin, I couldn’t tell which, and disappeared in the direction of Yellowcraigs.
Nothing else was apparent on the seaward side, and I turned my attention to the inlets to the east. No golden plover on the rocks this time, but more squinting eventually got redshank and turnstone. Less obvious were a pair of mystery birds just a bit too far away to make out. Adding to the mystique of birding, the guesswork of the unknowns and unsures.
By now time was marching on, and it was time to head back. I promised myself a rest at the car park bench and for some dusk birding. Given the encroaching tide (still no sanderling, incidentally) I opted to walk the alternative path and rejoin the main path via the golf club.
And what a decision that was.
Avid readers will recall that I’m a fan of isolation and of wild places. Places I can let my imagination run riot and pretend that they’ve never seen human encroachment. This path was where the warm glow, the quiet satisfaction of my earlier fieldfare view became an extravaganza.
The path was far enough away from the sea that I could barely hear the waves against the rocks. Instead, the air was filled with the sound of corvids, at least 3 bullfinch, and dozens upon dozens of fieldfare. Very mobile fieldfare at that, moving en masse from tree to tree. I thought I’d struck lucky with the poseur fieldfare earlier that day, but this was one of those times where you just have to stop, and watch. Everything else becomes unimportant in that moment.
The rest of the walk back was pretty uneventful. The tide was now in the bay, completely changing the character of the reserve. What had seemed like a never- ending expanse of mud and sand was now a gently- lapping sea. I sat on the bench, and scanned the water through the scope, soaking in the last views before trudging back to the bus stop for the trek home.
THOUGHTS
The Rolling Stones once sang that you can’t always get what you want. But that sometimes you get what you need. My trip to Aberlady didn’t get me pinkies, it didn’t get me sanderling, or even golden plover. It did get me three other ticks, and more importantly, some of those moments of birding perfection that we all crave. It didn’t get me the birds that I thought I wanted, but it did get me the birding DAY that I needed. And for that, I’m thankful.
Stay healthy, stay brilliant folks
John
Sometimes, its good to treat yourself. Not in the spa day pampering sense, or in extravagant purchases- my clothes are predominantly from ASDA, or whatever other people buy me as gifts. Instead, I was thinking its good to have a ‘drop everything’ day out. A big day, a long day. A day worth looking forward to all week. A day which takes some planning, logistics, where a lot can go wrong (and in my case often does.) A day, where you’d think, a sensible birder would make sure offered the highest reward to risk ration you could get.
So, keeping this in mind I spent the week preparing for my trip to Aberlady. That’s right, Aberlady. Avid readers will recall that this is the big reserve in Lothian which I have a problematic relationship with. A place which it seems holds a bitter, and undeserved, hatred for me. A hatred which is occasionally reciprocated. Surely, Green Sand, if you’re going birding in the East, there are much better places in Lothian to visit?
Undoubtedly, but for whatever reason I set my sights on Aberlady. Saturday began reasonably enough by only sleeping in for an hour. A positive result by my standards. Train journey to Edinburgh was uneventful, bar having to listen to rugby bores on their way to watch Scotland v Italy. Edinburgh city centre was reasonably busy, but I managed to catch the bus to Aberlady very quicky. I settled down for the hour or so journey, deliberately staying off social media lest I see something exciting at Musselburgh, or worse, at Aberlady that would be both twitchable, and dippable.
Arriving at Aberlady I took my time setting up my scope, opting to soak in the atmosphere, the sights, smells, the breeze on my skin, and the gentle warmth of the sun. I knew I was there for the day, and wanted an immersive experience. The tide was far out, but a scan of the mud from the car park got me redshank, shelduck, curlew and oycs in good numbers. No golden plover that I could see, and no geese. Its not as if Aberlady is famed for its geese….. A walk across the rickety (to me) bridge made me reconsider my life choices, but eventually I was back on terra firma. A further scan of the mud didn’t get anything new, and a bit of bird listening quickly got me bullfinch from the bushes. Not too shabby a start.
A few hundred yards further on I got speaking to a birder who was on his way off the reserve. Usual questions about what we’d each seen, with the usual dire “nah, its quiet.” A massed flock of fieldfare had taken off shortly before, apparently, and headed the opposite direction to where I was going. Never mind being here 10 minutes ago, I should’ve been there 100 yards ago. I wasn’t overly- concerned as I knew that the fieldfare feasted on sea buckthorn berries, and there were plenty of bushes along the path to the beach. This knowledge was tempered by the experience that most years, though, I tend to get mildly- unsatisfying fieldfare views at Aberlady.
This year, though, I was in for a treat. I had paused to scan the fields with my scope, and a walker stopped to chat. A keen birder herself, she lived in the village, and Aberlady was her patch. Discussed the things we’d seen, the changes she’d noticed in bird behaviour locally, and as we did so, we heard the familiar chacking of a fieldfare. We said our goodbyes, and I focused on finding the source of the noise. Before long I had a stunning fieldfare in the scope, caught in bright sunlight, with every feather, it seemed, caught in stark contrast against the browns of the bushes. I mused as I watched it gorge itself that it looks like its plumage is designed by a deranged civil service committee, with multiple sources insisting on having an input but it somehow works. A stunning looking bird, and a year tick at that. Already the trip was worthwhile just for the view.
The rest of the walk to the beach was uneventful, bar very active corvids. Lots and lots of walkers, not all of whom blessed with social skills, and I took the path to skirt round the side of the dunes. A longer walk, but quieter, and it avoided a steep climb up and down a dune, something that isn’t easy with the scope. The longer route also afforded me a sense of wildness (as much as Aberlady can be) and heightened my senses for birds suddenly erupting from the undergrowth and flying off into the distance. The walk was quiet, bar a possible (and therefore untickable) meadow pipit erupting. As I followed it into the distance (more accurately, I tried to find it against the sky) I caught sight of a group of redwing in the trees, offering the same great views that their Fieldfare cousin had done earlier.
Each year Aberlady is my banker, my guarantee for a sanderling. I’ve not often had much luck seawatching, but its been reliable for some things that are within my limited seaside skillset. With the tide being still far out, the waterline was at my scope’s limit. A scan showed me quickly that there was not a huge amount of birdlife about. My eyes were drawn to a flock of oystercatcher to the Southwest. Momentarily, a bird flew in, and then out. The brief glimpse made me suspect it was a sanderling, but I couldn’t be sire. Unworried, I knew it was a big beach with a lot of territory to walk before reaching Gullane Point.
On the way to Edinburgh I had found time to for some reading- it helped drown out the rugger types. Guy Shrubsole’s Lost Rainforests of Britain (highly recommended incidentally) includes a bit where he advocates looking at all aspects of the wild, not just a narrow focus. With this in mind, I found myself fascinated by the myriad of different shells, and the sheer number of razor clams. I wondered whether this was an unusually high count, a low count, or just plain average. The limits of my knowledge of the natural world were laid bare once again.
Returning to what I did know, I scanned the water’s edge for movement. Bar good numbers of corvids, I could find nothing on the beach. Scanning further out I saw the familiar outline of eider. Plenty of eider, but this is Lothian, which could be renamed Eiderland. A further look got me the unmistakeable shape of long- tailed duck, a squint and some averted vision identified it as a female. A larger flock of black ducks further out were beyond the range of the scope. I guessed scoter, of some description, and I knew that the tide would eventually bring them in closer.
The sheer scale of the beach at low tide is difficult to put into words, and I knew from experience that the rocky promontory at Gullane Point was a long, hard slog through the sand. Stopping periodically to scan the water, I eventually picked out both common and velvet scoter on the water. The distance made the views slightly disappointing, but the identification more of an achievement. The curving of the beach and the slowly incoming tide making viewing that little bit easier, making all the difference between a possible, probable, and definite.
I reached my destination utterly without sanderling, feeling a mixture of annoyance, disappointment and a little consternation. So much for guarantees…..
A couple of teenagers were relaxing on my favoured high-spot on the promontory, and I made do with a slightly lower, slightly less flat place, which still offered views out to sea and around the headland in the direction of Fidra. Despite the time of year and the fact it was mid- afternoon the weather remained mild, and I discarded my heavy jacket. Scanning first out to sea I again got the common and velvet scoter, albeit they remained tantalisingly distant. Faintly in the distance I could hear the sound of geese, but could not get sight of them, and the noise faded.
Eider, unsurprisingly, were there in good numbers, and as I scanned them a flash of white zoomed past me. A male LT duck had flown round the headland. Flapping in the water caught my eye, and I scanned round to find a shag, now floating serenely, its crest upraised to rule out any mis- identification. Year tick 3, it was close enough that I could absorb all the subtlety of its plumage and the individual feathers of its crest. A flock of small white things then zoomed past, either sanderling or dunlin, I couldn’t tell which, and disappeared in the direction of Yellowcraigs.
Nothing else was apparent on the seaward side, and I turned my attention to the inlets to the east. No golden plover on the rocks this time, but more squinting eventually got redshank and turnstone. Less obvious were a pair of mystery birds just a bit too far away to make out. Adding to the mystique of birding, the guesswork of the unknowns and unsures.
By now time was marching on, and it was time to head back. I promised myself a rest at the car park bench and for some dusk birding. Given the encroaching tide (still no sanderling, incidentally) I opted to walk the alternative path and rejoin the main path via the golf club.
And what a decision that was.
Avid readers will recall that I’m a fan of isolation and of wild places. Places I can let my imagination run riot and pretend that they’ve never seen human encroachment. This path was where the warm glow, the quiet satisfaction of my earlier fieldfare view became an extravaganza.
The path was far enough away from the sea that I could barely hear the waves against the rocks. Instead, the air was filled with the sound of corvids, at least 3 bullfinch, and dozens upon dozens of fieldfare. Very mobile fieldfare at that, moving en masse from tree to tree. I thought I’d struck lucky with the poseur fieldfare earlier that day, but this was one of those times where you just have to stop, and watch. Everything else becomes unimportant in that moment.
The rest of the walk back was pretty uneventful. The tide was now in the bay, completely changing the character of the reserve. What had seemed like a never- ending expanse of mud and sand was now a gently- lapping sea. I sat on the bench, and scanned the water through the scope, soaking in the last views before trudging back to the bus stop for the trek home.
THOUGHTS
The Rolling Stones once sang that you can’t always get what you want. But that sometimes you get what you need. My trip to Aberlady didn’t get me pinkies, it didn’t get me sanderling, or even golden plover. It did get me three other ticks, and more importantly, some of those moments of birding perfection that we all crave. It didn’t get me the birds that I thought I wanted, but it did get me the birding DAY that I needed. And for that, I’m thankful.
Stay healthy, stay brilliant folks
John