Musselburgh

Over the past few years, Musselburgh just east of Edinburgh on the Firth of Forth has become one of my favourite birding places. The main reason for this is the sea ducks. For an inland west coast birder who has to make do with the occasional 1st winter long-tailed duck on the local lake or very distant scoter on the North Wales coast, it's a dream to see velvet scoter close enough to be able to identify them without waiting for them to fly or adult male and female long-tailed ducks in immaculate winter plumage.

A scan over the sea from the mouth of the River Esk will reveal at least 30 or 40 velvets at quite close range and occasionally a few might be really close, so that you can clearly see features which you can only imagine from the majority of North Wales lookouts, such as the white tick behind the eye and perhaps even the white eye ring. If you're really lucky they might be joined by an American white-winged scoter which is very similar to the velvets but with a different bill structure and colour, and an even larger white tick. No such luck today, apparently it's been hit and miss this winter, but I was compensated by another American bird, an adult drake surf scoter. This is a bird which I have seen many times from the North Wales coast, with sometimes up to five birds in amongst the thousands of common scoter which congregate off that coast, but they're always at best distant and I've never seen then as well as at Musselburgh. My first surf scoter was from Llanfairfechan in 1983 and I remember commenting at the time that it looked like a coot in amongst the scoter. It was basically just a black dot with a white forehead. At Musselburgh they are revealed as a strikingly impressive bird, the males with completely black plumage with an orange bill and big white patches on the eider shaped head. Speaking of eiders, several are present offshore.

Long-tailed duck are also present as are goldeneye, wigeon and a few Slavonian grebes. The adult male long-tailed ducks are like a different species to the smudgy and rather oiled looking young birds we sometimes see locally, with sharp black, white, grey and pink plumage and a black bill with a pink band, plus a long tail as well of course! In spring I often see them chasing each other around but not today. 

So far Musselburgh has been a place I've only visited on work trips to the area, which obviously doesn't give me a lot of time, I always seem to be in a rush. When things improve and we get back to normal, I'll have to make a point of staying in the area for a few days to really get to know the place.