We rose early, loaded the car and had a hearty breakfast and left for a day's birding. This was to be our modus operandi for the holiday, resulting in long but often rewarding days out. We decided to start at Nairn, the reasoning behind going to the coast was the weather was better and we were saving the sunny days for Loch Garten and Cairn Gorm.
We visited Nairn beach first, in the corner between the pier and the sea wall were Knot, Oystercatchers, Curlew and Turnstones along with the usual gulls. Offshore, desultory ducks, no big flocks to be seen anywhere and on the pier itself a Hooded Crow, which was probably a hybrid with Carrion Crow.
Along the beach a lone walker whose dog was being harassed by five "hoodies" which showed no fear and were constantly swooping on the hapless dog.
Not an auspicious start so we moved to the other side of the river were we found a substantial roost of Redshanks, a flighty Grey Wagtail and several Oystercatchers. Now I am used to seeing plenty of Oystercatchers but during this holiday we encountered them everywhere, even spotting one on the roof of a bungalow near Forres. A fly past of 5 Whooper Swans was nice to see but I failed to get a reasonable capture.
On along the coast to Findhorn Bay where we parked at the hide. There was a police car present and it was apparent that another incident had taken place, something that is developing into a trend with our birding. As the third police car arrived I was politely asked if I would remove my scope and if it was possible for me to relocate elsewhere. Luckily we had been monitoring the Moray and Nairn website recent sightings page and we were aware of a flock of Twite on the foreshore in Findhorn Village so off we went to find them.
Parking in the village we walked just a few yards before locating a mixed flock of Linnets and Twite.
This one has all the hallmarks. Longer deeply cleft tail, pink on rump, bolder pale wing bar, more heavily dark streaked plumage and a dark tipped yellow bill.
There are three problems with photographing Twite - they are highly mobile, consort with Linnets causing identification confusion and they are difficult to locate in the debris of the foreshore. For comparison some Linnet shots taken at the same location.
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