LBBs at last

Finally Inverkeithing was graced by the presence of a couple of Lesser Black-backed Gulls, lifting the total to 54 species. A slight snowfall put me off taking the scope out but in the end there wasn't anything that had a hint of otherness about it anyway.

Since I'm on my way to Turkey shortly, here's one of the rarest birds I've found there, and one of the most beautiful duck species into the bargain:

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Common Eider Somateria mollissima
Vagrant. Fifth to ninth records in Turkey. All records have been since 1975, when the
species first bred on the Ukrainian Black Sea coast; the population reached over 1000 pairs
in the mid-1990s and was still increasing and expanding in 2000 (Dutch Birding 23: 354).
Black Sea Coastlands: Riva, north- east mouth of the Bosphorus: eclipse male and two
immatures, 8–14 Sep 02 (KA Boyla, B Demirci; Sandgrouse 25: 158, where listed solely for 8
Sep); 2, 3 Jan 04 with one until 22 Mar 04 at least (S İsfendiyaroğlu et al; Sandgrouse 26: 167);
nearby, 25–26 Sep 05 (E Yoğurtçuoğlu, B Bilgen; Sandgrouse 28: 95). 3, Kızılırmak Delta,
16–17 Dec 2005 (S Bekir, N Yavuz; Sandgrouse 28: 191, where listed only for 17 Dec).
Thrace: Terkos Gölü, 8 Dec 02 (M Bozdoğan, S İsfendiyaroğlu; Sandgrouse 25: 158).
>>

From OSME, "Turkey Bird Report 2002–06", Kirwan et al

Mine was a female on the Black Sea coast at Karaburun 19/12/2011. There seem to be multiple records annually now