Birds Seen in the Burnside Area of Scrabster from 1989 – 1999
Norman Glover

The table below shows the birds seen, month by month over the past ten years, from my sunroom window. The view covers the area from Scrabster harbour to about half way across the bay towards Dunnet Head. I have a 30x80 telescope on a tripod and the definition is good enough to identify birds on Holborn Head.

As usual, Statistics can be very misleading; some of the birds shown appear regularly, year after year, while others come only occasionally but usually in the months shown. Some, of course, are resident like the house sparrow, shag, herring gull, pigeon, black bird and others. Oddly one usually common bird that appears in our garden only occasionally is the chaffinch.

It is remarkable how regular the arrivals are – the migrants usually appear during the same couple of weeks each year.

At odd times there is a bird which is obviously temporarily "lost" having been blown off course during migration. Before my records started we had a Black Redstart, in the garden, and a flock of Brent Geese, in the sea, which fall into that category