Finally feels like spring!

With a much improved weather forecast yesterday morning we decided to have a family trip to the Harthope Valley, one of my favourite locations to combine birding and a family picnic!

We only stayed around the Hawsen Burn but still saw a nice selection of birds. Here's the highlights...

1 Cuckoo
10+ Whinchat
1 Wheatear
3+ Grey Wagtail
1 Redstart
2 Ring Ouzel
2+  Raven

We were also told about a couple of male Adders which gave great views in among some rocks.

After getting home we headed to Big Waters to try and catch up with a few of the influx of Black Terns. Sure enough a group of 10 stunning adult Black Terns we feeding over the lake and showed well in the afternoon sun. These were my first Black Terns which weren't autumn juveniles. I had to make do with record shots of the Terns as they were slightly too far away for the DSLR and I had to resort to digiscoping...

Adder

Whinchats - the males never cam close!

Singing male Ring Ouzel

Chaffinch

Black Terns - digiscoping terns isn't easy!