Twenty years

I've lived in Chateau L for over 20 years. A mere blip in the history of such an esteemed residence of course, and who knows what came before, but in this, my 21st year, an important milestone - perhaps the only possible milestone - has finally been reached. 100 birds.

The full garden list is here, and of course normal rules apply. That is to say that this is birds seen or heard from my garden, rather than birds in my garden. Otherwise the list would be about fifteen. It's an important distinction - if I can see it or hear it from within these four walls turrets then on it goes. So mostly it is flyovers, and some birds have flown past just once in those twenty years, or at least just once when I've been here to see it happen. Then again is Osprey a daily occurence? Likely not.

Gratifyingly the 100th bird was one of my top predictions, a Great White Egret. A southern European species that has been steadfastly moving north, it was only a matter of time in my view. It took 14 years to see one at all, but since 2018 I've now seen nine here. Most of them have been seen whilst I've been out birding on Wanstead Flats, elation as still a rare bird by any standard, but often tinged with disappointment knowing that had I been at home the bird would have easily been visible from the battlements.

Finally, this weekend just gone, the inevitable happened. I was at home, or rather back home, having already returned from a pretty mediocre visit to Wanstead Flats. Minding my own business in the kitchen I noted my phone beeping. It was the local birding WhatsApp group, the ever-alert Tony informing us that a GWE was flying west from Alexandra Lake towards Coronation Copse. West is key, it means the bird is coming towards Chateau L. East and it is already too late. 

I grabbed my bins, still on the side from my recent outing, and charged up the stairs like a man half my age. Gazelle-like, possessed, three at a time. How long had it taken him to type the message, should I look out the back or the front? Would it carry on west, would it veer north? Crucial decisions that I've got wrong before, Oystercatcher remains to this day 'heard only'. I threw open the french doors to the balcony. No, it felt wrong. Back to the front, to the tried and tested method that has in the past netted Osprey and Raven, standing on the toilet with my upper body fully out of the velux and thus able to scan 180 degrees unimpeded.

Boom! Perhaps 30 seconds later it actually flew down the street, or at least over the gardens of the houses opposite. Lazy but deliberate, floppy yet controlled. I drank it in as it disappeared north-west towards Walthamstow. It felt like forever but was probably through and gone in a just a few seconds. No time for the camera but that is always a secondary consideration. That  one view is all you need for a garden tick that will remain for time immemorial. Here's what it looked like (though the bill was black on this one), one of my photos from somewhere else entirely. Clearly it would have been wonderful to have had it with local rooftops in the frame, but I'm not fussy, it was still a 'moment'.

Annual

Well it is that time of year again. Grass fire time. Wanstead Flats is being repeatedly set on fire by either idiots or full-on arsonists. In July the bit to the east of Alex went up again, it had just about recovered from the last fire. We lost about ten acres on Monday in the SSSI, and at some point in the the last few days an area near Angel Pond has disappeared as well as a new part of the SSSI.

Motorcycle Wood

It's annual now. Each year by late July the patch is tinder dry, fires just waiting to happen. This was a major fire. I was coming home on the bus on Monday and could see fire engines and blue lights everywhere, towers of smoke and flame. As you can see above Motorcycle wood has been saved by the monumental efforts of around 70 firefighters, but it has been burned on all four sides. 

Walking around the area a few days later, I came across this:

Is it any wonder? When will these things be banned - they're for sale in shops about two minutes walk from Wanstead Flats, prominently displayed outside on the pavement as you walk towards Forest Gate. This falls into the idiot category of course, but I do wonder if these fires are more sinister. They seem to be so close together, only a day or so apart. The cynic in me thinks about someone looking on in delight as all this goes on, and when that high has diminished creeps out and starts another one. Who knows? As far as I know none of these fires have ever been traced to anyone, including the massive one a few years back that nearly caused my street to be evaculated in case it crossed the road. Those flames were several metres tall, I remember the whole area being in a cloud of smoke, it was like something out of Apocalypse Now.

Angel

This is our future. Annual fires destroying the habitat, more pressure on breeding sites and feeding areas. And it seems only a matter of time before one of these coincides with a hot and very windy day and it becomes more than a grass fire. Let us cross our fingers that never happens. Anyway, that's the news from the patch as autumn begins.

Letham and around

 

Letham north pool

So whilst the sea-watching didn't go especially well I managed to spend a bit of time pottering around my usual sites in mid-Fife. I wasn't able to add anything that other people would consider especially tasty at Letham, it's the right time of year but the water levels remain too high for most waders to pay it much attention. But I did walk down the water treatment compound access lane on the south side on the off-chance that there might be some birds on the sunny sheltered side. This is a dead end leading to the gates and I don't go down here frequently as it's a little awkward to get out again in the car, but I reckon I should as it was a hive of activity with loads of Blue Tit, Great Tit, Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff and Wren, and better still Song Thrush and Treecreeper, both of which were site ticks. I literally could not believe it when I raised my bins and saw the Thrush, it has been a target for ages but I assumed I would hear it from afar and perhaps get a scope view. It positively shone on the branch before flitting deeper and away. The Treecreeper (and it turned out there were two) I heard before I saw it, then the desperation of needing to see it kicked in. I could hear it constantly, and then all of a sudden it was in front of me. Wow! Pure magic - the power of a patch. Further down there was another. This meant that I was now tantalisingly close to the magic 100 mark. 

Before this week I had expected that any new birds would have had to have come from the sky - a passing Osprey or something like that, which would need time and luck - but that lane now seemed to hold the key. All it would take is a Blackcap I mused....

Letham south side, from the lane

The next morning I arrived at Letham just after 7am. This time I pulled straight into the lane. As I got out of the car I various small birds scattered. Was I imagining it but could I hear Blackcap tacking? I could! A family group of three in one of the hedges by the road! 100 species for Letham! Otherwise the lane held broadly the same species as the previous day, albeit no Treecreepers or Song Thrushes. I first went to Letham in 2020 and this was my 51st visit. There is a price though - I worked out that I've driven a minimum of 900 miles as part of those visits which is a little sobering. Then again I've driven 6,000 miles to and from Rainham over the years. The way I see it is that I've driven virtually zero miles whilst birding Wanstead, and if Wanstead Flats were the same distance from my house as Letham is from the ancestral pad I'd have driven 25,000 miles. It makes you think though, how many miles do UK birders collectively drive whilst birding 'locally'?

Elder bush marked on the left, the lane to the gates on the right.

Back on the road between the two pools I pointed my scope back at the water treatment plant and zoomed up. Amazingly one of the first birds I settled on was the/a Song Thrush sat on the edge of the main tank! Right, now here's a challenge! You can guess what I mean by that. It took a while but eventually I picked up a female Blackcap in an elder bush - about 300m distant! It is a moot point as the lane is clearly part of Letham as I see it, but it was still very satisfying to be able to see it from where I normally stand. My standard patch inclusion rules are "on or from", i.e. if I could definitively see a Red Grouse on the East Lomond from where I was stood it would be on my Letham list! Whilst on this detailed scan of the south side I also picked up four Grey Wagtail on the rotating arm, four Magpie on the buildings, three Robin, a Blackbird, multiple Chiffchaff and several bright yellow Willow Warbler. It didn't end there though, the 101st bird arrived very shortly as a Crossbill circled the site and then continued south. I'd heard Crossbill in late July down on the coast at Dalgety Bay, and also that very same morning at Angle Park. They are on the move and on reflection I suppose it wasn't a huge surprise to get one here too, even if wasn't on my immediate radar.

So, Angle Park then. This is rapidly becoming another regular site as it is under two miles from Letham as the Crossbill flies and so is easy to combine into one outing. This is where I found a GWE last year, the vanguard of what amounted to an invasion in Fife over the following weeks. It's next to a landfill and is carpeted with Gulls a lot of the time, but that aside it's pretty decent with a lot more exposed mud than Letham at the moment. This delivered a Ruff which was new for the site and I also added House Martin and Canada Goose. Green and Common Sandpipers were here too. I've given up on The Wilderness, the landowner has made it increasingly difficult and you can barely see the water any more. 

As good as Letham and Angle Park are, they're a few miles from the house and when I'm up here this is where I spend most time. So more than a few hours were spent simply skywatching from the garden. Swallows and House Martins were constant, and the odd group of Swift came through as well. On Saturday afternoon my patience and alertness were rewarded by a distant raptor. I was on the terrace having just finished a family lunch, and as binoculars weren't really appropriate in that setting I had to charge into the house to get them. It turned out be a juvenile Marsh Harrier, fortunately moving slowly enough that a 20 second delay didn't prove fatal, and was a great garden tick. A decent bird in Fife as well, but most of my satisfied glow on this visit came from Letham.

Fife seawatching

I spent a few days in Fife recently, the normal family stuff but at the same time I had hoped to be able to get some time in seawatching. It didn't quite turn out like that and I could only spend one weekend morning out at Fife Ness during which the conditions were some way from being classic. My plan had been to take a weekday off on a better (i.e. worse!) weather day but due to various factors I wasn't able to take the time off from work. Storm Floris thus completely passed me by which is a shame. That said those strong winds on Monday were not ideal for Fife Ness either and whilst there was some movement there wasn't anything spectacular brought in. The day before I arrived there was a twitchable Cory's Shearwater lingering in the Forth.....when booking my trips this year I had picked promising dates, but I went home Cory-less again. One day one of my visits will coincide with the perfect weather pattern and I will experience an unforgettable seawatch, but for now it remains yet another one that got away. One day I'll be free to do whatever I want... 

  

Even though I knew the weather wouldn't deliver anything I went anyway. For a land-locked birder like me the weather is sort of irrelevant - I don't normally get to look at the sea at all and so even on a dull day in Fife I can have fun. The hide out at Fife Ness has had some serious TLC recently and is looking tip top with many more years in it. I spent an hour there on Sunday morning and was able to pick up Manx Shearwater, lots of Kittiwakes, Arctic, Common and Sandwich Terns, Shags, Common Scoter. Gannets probably stole the show, hundreds upon hundreds heading north to fish or returning south to the Bass Rock. Almost all were adults, I just love watching lines of them rise and fall in complete coordination. On the rocks in front of the hide were Oystercatcher, Curlew, a single Whimbrel, Redshank and Turnstones. On Balcomie Beach Sanderling and Ringed Plover skittered around, and Eider and Goosander rested on the rocks. Most of these birds I have never seen in Wanstead, a couple I see once in a blue moon. I take none of them for granted when I am up here.

Coast and Castles - July 2025 - Trip List

So that was the trip. A lot of fun but also very hard work. Six counties in six days, and about 220 miles covered as follows.

Newcastle to Blyth - 21.5 miles

Blyth to Seahouses - 50.7 miles

Seahouses to Eyemouth - 40.7 miles

Eyemouth to Haddington - 35 miles

Haddington to Edinburgh - 30.5 miles

Edinburgh to Fife - 38.6 miles

I saw a lot of birds, a surprising number really, with a total of 103 species seen between Newcastle and Fife. East Lothian was the most productive, perhaps due to that dedicated session at Musselburgh, followed closely by Northumberland. Both counties are now close to 100 species - on my next drive up or down I will try and put that right. Here's the list in spreadsheet form, and if you wanted to see it in eBird it can be found here. Here also is Mrs L's non-organisational contribution to the trip.

Coast and Castles - July 2025 - Fife

Technically I suppose Mrs L and I are now beyond the Coast and Castles route, which starts in Newcastle and ends in Edinburgh. At this point, and in fact since Berwick, we have been travelling along CR76. The Forth Road Bridge is a cheeky but iconic short cut; the route in fact goes all the way across to Stirling and then back down the other side to Rosyth. I had been  greatly looking forward to this moment. Partly for the views, partly to say I'd done it (all my children have done it), and partly because I was sure I was going to be able to see loads of birds from up there. 

As a result it took me ages to cross and Mrs L left me behind. And other than a handful of Common Tern on some rocks near the North Queensferry side I saw no birds at all. We were in Fife! Now my Fife list is 208, and I was 100% sure that it would remain on 208 despite taking a slow route to the original Chateau L. So this was more about seeing if anything could be added to the trip list from a numbers perspective. We passed through Inverkeithing and bought some lunch, and then headed east for the first time down to the shore. I've never seen the bridges from this perspective. Along this track there was another Bullfinch, as as we went around the edge of Dalgety Bay some unseen Crossbills passed overhead - these were new for the trip and they are on the move at this time of year.

Dalgety Bay

We had lunch overlooking Pettycur Bay, high up on the bluff between the train tracks and the road. Not especially glamourous but the view is nice. I scanned the Terns and Waders on the sand before the tide came in but other than a couple of Barwits could not sift out anything particularly special. 

At Kinghorn our route turned inland for a while to cut out a corner. Kinghorn Loch was only a very short distance off the CR76 so we paused there for a cup of tea. The home stretch. I had been hoping for a Gadwall, or perhaps some Shoveler but it was not to be. A suspicious Pink-footed Goose was with some Greylag, but at least it didn't come in to the family chucking bread about. 

Back in the saddle we moved slowly north-east, the hill out of Kinghorn requiring getting off an pushing. There was then a lovely mild gradient downhill section to Kirkcaldly on Standing Stanes Road, and we hadn't gone far before a Wheatear flipped off the road and into the field. Our glide into Kirkcaldy complete, we pedalling slowly along the esplanade. The seafront at Kirkcaldy does not show Fife at it's best. The planners were asleep at the wheel and the 1960s and 70s seem to have been particularly unkind. I had a last scan of the sea and then it was up into Thornton.

So close. Birding was put to one side, I just wanted to get off the bike. The last few miles were thus pretty rapid and we arrived at the ancenstral pad at around half four. A case of pinot noir had arrived earlier that day (sent by me in a moment of desperation en route) and so we cracked a bottle open shortly afterwards. Done!

The visit was brief - we spent the whole week getting there and had to go home more or less immediately!

Coast and Castles - July 2025 - East Lothian and Edinburgh

I am not sure where exactly we crossed into East Lothian, but by the time we reached Torness that's where we were. Near where the cycle path begins there's a lake, Whitesands Quarry, and another prolongued stop added Great Crested Grebe and Pochard for the trip. This was where I first detected some frustration - checklist #49 if you were wondering - so she did pretty well. There was a Yellow Wagtail along here somewhere as well.

So, East Lothian. In contrast to the Borders I've actually been birding here a few timest. My first recorded visit was for a Hoopoe in 2010. I'd been staying in Fife and back in those days I thought nothing of driving a few hours for a bird, I was at my most rabid. It was near a burn at Dunglass. I then neglected the county for a decade before going birding at Musselburgh in 2020 when there was a White-winged Scoter present off the beach. In then in 2022 I went to Aberlady Bay and dipped something but I can't now remember what it was. Presumably a duck of some kind. These visits meant I started this trip on 68 species, but with none of them having been in the summer months I was missing lots of common things.

The Bass Rock looms large

We bought a picnic lunch (as well as food for the evening) from the Co-Op in Dunbar and took it to the seafront where we found a pleasant bench. This close to the Bass Rock Gannet passage was excellent, and my count of 750 is probably a massive underestimate. There was a sole Fulmar and also just one Sandwich Tern, but Kittiwakes were passing in good numbers. Things like Sand Martin, Swallow and Swift were all new.

Pied Wagtail

Seafield Lagoon

At this point we headed inland, cutting out the lump of North Berwick and Gullane. We cycled past Seafield Lagoon which necessitated another stop, and then encountered what I felt was possibly the most miserable part of the route so far, a three mile straight line slog alongside the A199 against a direct 20mph headwind. We turned south at East Linton and from there it was only a few miles to our stop for the night at Morham. This was a one room bothy in the middle of endless cabbage fields that Mrs L had stayed in before, and it was possibly my favourite night of them all despite having to sleep in a sleeping bag on a rock solid bunk. It just had some real charm about it. We enjoyed a basic but very tasty home-cooked meal, a jammy Co-Op syrah without any finesse whatsoever, and listened to an episode of A Prairie Home Companion which somehow seemed appropriate.

Bell's Bunkhouse Bothy. Sleeps 6.

The following morning we woke up to rain. Pah! Thanks Scotland. We packed up and got ready as slowly as we possibly could but ultimately were forced to leave in some light mizzle of the sort that gets you wet but not really wet. I did not break out the waterproof trousers. Despite the weather I continued birding, and by the time we reached Haddington it had brightened up sufficiently to get my bins out. We cycled along a small river into town, the hightlights being a pair of Grey Wagtail by the weir, and a calling Green Woodpecker closer to town.

The Great East Lothian Cabbage Belt

After a nice but bad for me breakfast in a local deli (where we also stocked up on another picnic lunch), we headed up towards the coast a Longniddry. This was along a disused railway line and was quite wonderful, with lots of Warblers, Blackbirds, Chaffinch, Yellowhammer, a Buzzard and best of all a male Bullfinch.

Oh look, there's someone up ahead waiting for me

The sea at Seton Sands was like a mirror. Rafts of Eider floated passively on it, there was barely a ripple. As ever the number of dogs being walked on the beach beggared belief and so waders were thin on the ground. I think I added a single Bar-tailed Godwit, and at Port Seton shore, my keen eyes picked out a Kingfisher which I insisted Mrs L, some way ahead of me again, to come back and look at. We would never get to Musselburgh she said.  

But we did, and at a perfect time for lunch. I wanted to go and explore the lagoons, so she settled down to more sock and I scooted off. I joined some birders on the sea wall looking for (and finding, with Velvets) the long-staying drake Surf Scoter, and then cycled up to the old lagoons. These were teeming with birds until two young ladies decided to try and inflate a dinghy on one. I mean really? Anyway, lots of Little Gull on the left hand pool, with Shelduck, Lapwing, Redshank and a few Dunlin, and then at least seven Common Sandpiper on one of the rear pools. There was supposed to a Wood Sandpiper knocking around as well, and I was a little disappointed when the intrepid rowers failed to put it up. Lots of Pied Wagtail on the short grass.

Surf Scoter in amongst Velvet Scoters

I rejoined Mrs L at the Esk and we carried on into Edinburgh, East Lothian finishing on a pleasing but oh-so-close 97. My Edinburgh list stood at just 26 and is basically just my sister's garden and the airport. A couple of random housing estates added Song Thrush and Long-tailed Tit, and then all of a sudden we were rounding Arthur's seat and after a long graffiti'd tunnel popped out quite near the Royal Mile. From having been in the middle of nowhere for large parts of trip to now be in a huge throng of people was a little discombobulating, but we took it in for a while before carrying on to my sister's house, the run of which we had to ourselves as the whole family was out. We did boring things like all of our washing, and then walked into town to Aizle, a posh restaurant I'd booked a few days earlier when the deep-fried fare had been getting me down. We had a five course tasting menu that was simply exquisite, with wines that matched the food well but were (in my spoiled brat universe) fairly unexciting. I failed to take any photos of the food as seems so de-rigeur these days, but it was as beautiful as it was delicious.

Edinburgh

Well rested and well fed we awoke the next morning for the final leg. Over the Forth Road Bridge and onwards into Fife. I am not sure of the exact route, but it was inland rather than along the coast, passing through Craigleith and Davidson's Mains to Dalmeny and finally to Queensferry. I'd been looking forward to this bit.

Never gets old