Black Scoter: After carrying out a series of preliminary ecological appraisals near Edinburgh and Aberdeen I planned a trip to Blackdog beech in a hopeful search for the black scoter. I was joined by local bider and top bloke Nick Littlewood who was a huge help in giving me some gen and helping me search through the flock.
Eider: Blackdog is an exhilarating place to visit made that little bit better having the large scoter flock, looking like a black slick relatively close in from the from the turbines.
The scoters were fascinating to watch as they packed tightly together bobbing up and down on the surface of the water before diving in synchronous one by one following each other and completely disappearing under the water to feed and then appearing on mass.
Eventually I picked the black scoter up with its bright yellow bill glowing in a short spell of good light.
I spent the following morning at the mouth of the Ythan Estuary trying to relocate the king eider, but with most of them now entering eclipse plumage the odds were stacked against me and as nick said it had probably moved on anyway.
