Strathbeg Big Sit
24 May 2026
This morning my dad and I woke up around 6am, hoping to arrive at Strathbeg for the RSPB Local Group's "Big Sit". At this event, members of the group spend 12 hours, from 7am to 7pm recording as many species from the Strathbeg Visitor Centre as possible. The total reached last year was an impressive 84 species.
Upon arrival, at 7:30am, we joined Keith (see his blog at boatbirder.com), Rob and David Leslie, and a few other members of the group. I soon got my first year tick of the day, in the form of a male Garganey, that was sleeping in the grass by the side of one of the ponds.
At Girdleness, we found the bulk of nests that day. While scanning the pools, I picked out a few good birds, such as a Spoonbill, many Shovelers and Gadwalls, a few Wood Sandpipers, and a couple Marsh Harriers. Looking in the distance, a Goosander was on the main Loch of Strathbeg, and Gannets as well as a few unidentifiable auks were passing offshore.
Back at the pools, we had relocated a Little Stint, that the others had seen earlier on in the morning. I even managed to get a photo of a Wood Sandpiper and the Little Stint in the same frame. In terms of waders, we also saw a Lapwing with chicks, a few Ruff, some Black-tailed Godwits, six Snipe, and a Curlew.
Other birds with young included some pairs at the Black-headed Gull colony, which already had small, but fully feathered and active chicks. Before we left,
Before we left, we also saw a flock of 7 Cranes.
Loch of Strathbeg, St Mary's Chapel
After our inital stop, we went to St Mary's Chapel, near Rattray, to see what was about, and if the pair of Dotterel were still about.
Once we arrived, we were greeted by the song of Corn Buntings, often compared to the sound of "keys jingling". We soon also located one of the culprits, which was singing from an overhead wire, but the other singing male eluded us.
Unfortunately, we did not seen any Dotterel, as it seems they had moved up into higher ground, or perhaps made their way to other breeding grounds in the rest of Europe.
On the loch, there were a few Cormorants, a couple GBBGs, and some Tufted Ducks, although, as Tim Marshall also noted, it was a fairly quiet day for wildfowl.
Our final birding stop for the day was at Bullers of Buchan, as we hoped to see the nesting seabirds, most notably, Puffin. When we arrived, we soon saw how the cliffs were alive with Kittiwakes, Guillemots and Razorbills. There was also a Shag that was stitting on a nest, and we soon found the Puffins.
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