WINTER RARITIES ON THE ROAD NORTH-TAIGA BEAN GOOSE AND A LONG STAYING DOWITCHER

A last-minute call confirming three weeks of work in Caithness, Scotland, was enough to get me out of Cheshire at silly o’clock, turning the long drive north into an unexpected birding opportunity. With a free weekend ahead, the obvious plan was to make the most of it en route.

My first stop was the Slamannan Plateau, the UK’s main wintering site for Taiga Bean Goose. I counted 38 birds, a reassuring sight at a site I hadn’t visited since 2007. 

A rare winter visitor from Scandinavia and northern Russia, only a few hundred Taiga Bean Geese spend the winter in Britain, making Slamannan a site of national conservation importance. Seeing the flock still returning in good numbers felt quietly significant.

Slamannan

Continuing north, I called in at Montrose Basin, the enclosed estuary of the River South Esk in Angus. Covering some 750 hectares of tidal mudflats, the basin offers feeding and roosting habitat for a wealth of birdlife and is rightly regarded as one of Scotland’s premier wetland sites. It also happens to be my mate Dan Pointon’s local patch.

Montrose Basin-Rossie Spit

Dan’s hospitality came with a timely bonus: the long-staying Long-billed Dowitcher at Rossie Spit, which he originally found on 15 October, was still present. A scarce Nearctic wader, Long-billed Dowitcher breeds in Alaska and northern Canada and winters mainly in the southern United States, Central America and the Caribbean, with only occasional individuals reaching Britain. The bird showed well, feeding calmly, a smart first-winter, with softly marked grey-brown upperparts and clean underparts typical of the age, and a very welcome addition to my Scottish list.

A work trip may have provided the excuse, but it was these short detours that turned the journey north into something far more memorable.