08/07/2021 Blackdog, Aberdeenshire

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. 

01/06/2015 Amble, Northumberland

Eider: After arriving home from Dorset and a very early night, Gary, Jon and I left Manchester and headed for the Black-winged Part.

But alas this would prove to be another futile attempt to see this blasted bird!


We arrived not long after the bird was spooked by some Crows and flew North, eventually ending up in Aberdeen!

Never mind!




Ever since Scott brought me to Amble Harbour a couple of years ago after our successful Collard Flycatcher twitch I have always thought Amble was pretty awesome.

So I thought we could go and take some wholemeal bread and visit Ambles famous Eider, and we weren't disappointed.  

In the usual Eider style they came straight over and were not shy, overall we ended up with some great birds, great views, great company but a rubbish dip!

21/04/2014 Morecambe

Eider: From Leighton Moss Dawn and her gran took a trip to the bay for an ice cream and a sit in the sun.

Looking at the amount of Redstarts, Ouzels and even Wheatears pinging through from around the Lancashire coast, I was hoping to see some migrants.

However I never had a chance to look properly and had to settle for one of Morecambe's finest chilling out on the incoming tide line.

09/05/2013 Amble Marina, Northumberland

Eider: The famous Eiders of Amble are awesome, these social and comical characters are Ambles answer to Mallard Ducks, they are incredibly approachable and stunning!

Here off Northumberland's coastline you can regularly see colonies of Eiders bobbing in and out of the waves where they spend most of their time, but the best place by a million miles to get close, and I mean very close to these sea ducks, is Amble's Marina.

Scott and I came straight here from seeing the Collard Flycatcher.

This greedy Eider was very cheeky and was pecking out camera lens's, fingers and shoes! It was after some bread......and don't worry Scott left with all his fingers intact!

Turnstone: The weather was grim and we only came to see the Eider but there was also a couple of Turnstone around the edges of the Marina and a few mixed gulls flying around but nothing unusual.