Birding Musselburgh and Joppa 23rd December 2019
An unexpected funeral in Musselburgh just before Christmas saw us holed up at the Rockville Hotel in Joppa. This had the unexpected value of having rooms directly looking over the Firth of Forth. In fact they had tall windows that were hinged to open all the way inwards so you could sit in your room with a scope with no glass in-between. This gave us some great birding opportunities that helped take our minds of the upcoming funeral.
I had looked at the bird sightings for the area and to my amazement I read that an American White-winged Scoter had been seen at Musselburgh just off the sea wall mixed in with some Surf Scoters. The former would be a life tick and the latter a year tick so we were keen to go to the harbour at Fisherrow. Unfortunately we did not see either but, on our return to the hotel, we looked out of the window and saw four Scoters, at least three of which were Surf Scoters. Was the fourth the American cousin? I got my scope down to the waterfront and over two days I managed to get progressively better views but I was insufficiently confident that the fourth Scoter was the American bird – even though it looked slightly bigger with more white around the eye. It also seemed to sit slightly higher up in the water. Very frustrating but I hope I can see some photos of these birds in January that might help clear up whether we had a life tick or not.
Still, Surf Scoter was a good year tick and getting a Long-tailed Duck from the comfort of our bedroom was another great year tick and they don’t come easier than that. A third year tick, again almost impossible to believe that we had not seen one earlier, came in the form of very large numbers of Common Eider, also seen from our bedroom but commonly on the sea everywhere we looked.
We had an opportunity to drive around Musselburgh as well, so we drove over to the mouth of the River Esk where we got Turnstones, Wigeon, Goldeneye, Oystercatcher and Great Crested Grebe. At high tide there must have been a couple of hundred Redshank roosting on the gravel banks in the middle of the river.
So our unplanned and unwished-for trip up north had at least been softened a little by an observation of life from which we derived, if not consolation, at least a welcome distraction.
Bird Sightings Musselburgh and Joppa 23rd December 2019
| Species | No |
|---|---|
| Mute Swan | 10 |
| Eurasian Wigeon | 8 |
| Mallard | 2 |
| Common Eider | 100 |
| Surf Scoter | 4 |
| Long-tailed Duck | 1 |
| Common Goldeneye | 4 |
| Red-breasted Merganser | 2 |
| Great Crested Grebe | 4 |
| Eurasian Oystercatcher | 20 |
| Ruddy Turnstone | 10 |
| Common Redshank | 200 |
| Black-headed Gull | 12 |
| Common Gull | 60 |
| Herring Gull | 10 |
| Great Cormorant | 4 |
| Common Buzzard | 2 |
| Eurasian Jackdaw | 20 |
| Carrion Crow | 8 |
| Pied Wagtail | 2 |