January catch up..

A busy start to the year has made time for blogging limited, but before I headed back to work I had a very enjoyable day out on the 1st. Its a tradition for me to undertake some kind of bird race if I can on the 1st, this wasn't a very serious one and was mainly limited to the morning with local birding near the house in the afternoon. That said i ended up with a very respectable total of 84 species. Not only that the weather was cracking and there were several quality birds to be seen along the Fife Coast with one of the Water Pipits showing very well at Cocklemill Burn, as was the Black-necked Grebe at Elie. Also the 2 Surf Scoter still at St Andrews amongst the impressive gathering of seaduck that includes Scaup and Long-tailed Duck.

Corn Bunting at Ardross on New Years Day. An initiative to  improve habitat for this species on the E Neuk of Fife is clearly working with one observer recording a flock of 122.

Jan 5th-a look round Lochore Meadows produced the regular red head Smew and 22 very confiding Whooper Swans.