Autumn and second winter 2022-part one.

It was cracking second half of the year for a continuous flow of scarce and rare birds in Fife. What was especially pleasing was being involved with finding or twitching several quality birds in West Fife, the W part of the county doesn't get the observer coverage of the E. 

July-Bonaparte's Gull  East Wemyss 

A great find by Harry Bell while monitoring the late summer/early gathering of Med Gulls (The largest gathering in Scotland) was a lovely adult Bonaparte's Gull moulting out of summer plumage. Harry got some lovely close images of the bird resting on the rocks on the evening of 22nd. I was there with John Nadin first thing on 23rd. Unfortunately the bird wasn't at the roost but eventually I located it feeding offshore with black-headed gulls and resting on the sea. Despite not being that close, the truly black hood (rather than brown in b.h.gull), and black bill could be seen and in flight, the striking pale underwings and quicker flight than b.h gull were noted. After this relocation, a few observers got lucky when the bird flew back to shore and spent some time on the rocks. Then it flew off to the NE and was not seen again. 

July-Cory's Shearwater Kinghorn.

John Nadin found a Cory's off Kinghorn on 25th which hung around for a few days and provided amazing shore based views for this rare species in Scotland. That said, Fife has got form for this species and its not the first time for Cory's off Kinghorn. Of course, in 2020 there was the remarkable occurrence of both Cory's and Scopolis Shearwaters even further up the Forth near the bridges with John Nadin also finding these. 

I saw this Cory's early morning of the 26th and got this video of it in great light close to shore as it lingered around a raft of Shags. 

Ferry Hills vis mig late August 

My brother Jon was up to visit and we enjoyed some good mornings of migration at my main local patch at Ferry Hills. The highlight was a long overdue patch first in the form of  a Honey- buzzard on 27th. The main credit for this one goes to Clive McKay (on his first visit of the autumn!) who expertly spotted this in the distance. It's really surprising how long its taken to add this to the patch list given the decent breeding population to the north of us. The bird was too distant for pics but Jon's sketch captures the moment: 

Other highlights included a vis migging Green Sandpiper and some migrating Whimbrel flocks. 

August is normally the peak month for Ferry Hills signature species, Tree Pipit. This year was no exception with 146 birds on 25th. 

After Jon returned south, the very end of the month on 31st saw the start of a good influx of Long-tailed Skuas on the E coast and I had 2 Juveniles fly inland on that date at Ferry Hills.