Tuesday 31st January

Mr Henderson gave me a tip as well, when I mentioned that I was targetting twites but thought they were only in the far West of the region.  The result was today's double visit to the Carse Pow estuary at Carsethorn and Southerness Golf Course.

I may have seen them at Carsethorn when a flock of birds went up from a gorse bush with some rather jittery toing and froing but couldn't get close enough to see them with the binoculars as they settled, camouflaged as they were against the brown of the field edge.  The only option was to go closer and most of the flock scattered leaving only two birds on the fence, one of which was unidentifiable and the other a chaffinch.

I patrolled around a bit but in 2 Celsius with a biting Easterly coming in off the estuary, I wasn't for hanging about and went back along the shore, picking up incidental sightings of oystercatcher, shelduck, redshank and dunlin.

A quick circular walk in the surrounding lanes was warmer and produced several hundred barnacle geese, a dozen golden plover (long time, no see) and lone crested duck and pochard on the trout farm - but no twite.

I had no precise area of Southerness Golf Course to target and decided to walk round it clockwise, starting next to the dunes.  There was very little about apart from more waders and for a long time the only birdies I saw were on the 16th green.

Golf courses are bigger than you imagine but even after a half way rest all I could manage was a couple of meadow pipits and a flock of chaffinches next to a farmhouse by the road.

About to give up, I started to follow the track back toward the clubhouse.  After a while I noticed a side track to a farm field in the centre of the golf course, which seemed to have been ploughed up for the cattle.  There were a few rooks around.

Passing along the edge of the field I saw a large flock of small birds go up in the far corner in a similar manner to those at Carsethorn in the morning.

This time I managed to sneak up to the area where they were feeding on the ground without disturbing them unduly and half hid behind a gorse bush, so that they strayed close enough to identify.  There was no mistaking them - buff necks, yellow beaks and long tails - and so it was easy to distinguish them from the few chaffinches mixed in with the flock.  I even attempted a photo which turned into a 'spot the twite' competition.

Spot the Twite (hard)

So another big landmark within a week!  In the past I thought I might have seen the odd twite on occasion but I would now say they were almost certainly linnets.  The only exception was a posse of ground feeding birds I once pursued at Balcary Bay but couldn't identify.  But that was in the summer.