Birds at Musselburgh

This is one of the Canada / greylag hybrid geese that I've watched grow up on Musselburgh's River Esk over the past year. Handsome bird, isn't it? Below, it's with a greylag and two Canada geese (plus two adolescent mute swans). Not sure what it's future will be...

Just further down the river I watched the always distressing annual ritual of mallard mating

There are 3 or 4 males in that pile, underneath which is one female, who kept flying off and diving into the water to try to avoid the males' attentions. After several minutes, they all calmed down and floated happily downriver together.

Then I walked along the John Muir Walkway to Musselburgh lagoons. This walk is well known for the views you get in winter of waders and sea ducks, but at this time of the year the grass by the path fills up with smaller, more secretive birds. Yesterday I delighted in the first wheatears of the year, a male and a female chasing each other, several reed buntings chasing each other and surround-sound skylark song, which is something that is becoming rarer and rarer as skylarks continue to decline across the UK.

I was delighted to see about ten house martins swooping over the Boating Pond (or were they actually sand martins? it seems a bit early for house martins to be back in Scotland for the summer, but although sand martins have definitely arrived back already, these birds seemed too dark to be sand martins). Whichever species, always wonderful to see them.

***
sunlight through clouds -
skylark rising
sings.

for NaPoWriMo