Jan 7th-
brief seawatch in strong North Wester from Kinghorn produced Bonxie, 92 Guillemot and 7 Kwake.

Jan 8th-
Rossie Bog area

Sunday dawned calm and mild so decided to go back to Rossie for first light to see if any geese or swans had roosted overnight on the main pool. No swans but at least 1,000 Pinkies were visible in the gloom but they suddenly all lifted off in a state of panic before I could check them for rarer species. Looking round I was just in time to see a huge pair of wings flapping about in the top of a pine tree-a W T Eagle from the E Coast release scheme had just perched up having presumably attempted to catch a goose.
Later I was driving the back roads for geese flocks and I stopped to look back over the other side of Rossie near Bowhouse Fm. A buzzard was visible some distance away on a fence post but it just didn't look right and instinct told me to get the SLR ready in the hope this bird lifted off, as it did i blasted away to secure some record shots. Watching this bird it seemed contrasty and long-winged. It flew off low across the bog behind some birch scrub.
So i started to review the pictures and even though they weren't great this bird looked very much like a Rough-legged Buzzard! I waited around but no sign and with several Common Buzzard around I was starting to have doubts, I didn't want to become one of these people who is always seeing scarce raptors as this was my second RLB in Scotland after finding one last autumn somewhere I can't talk about. Now this species is a bit rare up here even on E Coast when compared with say E Anglia, Indeed when I contacted the Fife recorder he said this would be mega in Fife. Not a bad day for raptors then with a fem/Juv Merlin around too, plus the eagle and 5 Common Buzzard.
Anyway I drove home uploaded the pics and hopefully the images speak for themselves-



This bird was a long way for my camera even with a 1.4 converter on a 300m lens so i've had to mega crop in on these but they show a good range of features to support ID as a RLB