Tentsmuir butterfly walk, Sun Aug 4th

Went up with the family Sunday afternoon on a beautiful sunny day, and saw a nice selection of butterflies, two of which I'd never seen before - Small Heath and Grayling. I probably have seen them, but didn't know what they were before. Also there were a good number of Dark-green Fritillaries and some Whites, some Small Coppers and a couple of Peacocks. There were also a couple of Six-spot Burnets but Cinnabar Moths were only available in caterpillar form still.

Dark Green Fritillary

Potted Grayling

Stealth mode

And on display

Small Tortoiseshell

Small Copper

Small Heath - slightly obstructed

Green-veined White poser

Cullaloe butterflies

A sunny lunchtime and Cullaloe swarming with butterflies. First Small Copper I've seen this year

Also enjoying some Knapweed one of many Green-veined Whites

August

No dividends apart from Water Rail from the lowering water level at Cullaloe yet. Very dark morning this morning with heavy cloud and rain showers. With little wind there wasn't much to write home about from Inverkeithing either.

LT Tit - manual focus in halflight

Black clouds over the Forth

A birdy memory from Switzerland - Black Kites over Le Bouveret gathering pre-roost

Divit mig

Some semblance of movement this morning at Inverkeithing, with a few Sand Martin and Wagtails, and a Common Sand mooching about the rocks. Finally managed to get a pic of one there. Usually I see them flying past low and then they skip round the coast when you get closer.

Common Gulls are increasing (12), as are BH Gulls (c.160). 22 Lapwings, which are roosting on the old papermill site, was a record for me too. Wouldn't mind a drop-in Med Gull which I need for my Divit list. I've missed at least one that I remember in the last couple of years.

Some nice Small Tortoiseshell butterflies on the Buddleias too.

Oh- I almost forgot. Tufty duck with 8 chicks at Dalbeath Marsh LNR last night. Yay :)

Common Sand on the rocks

Flypast Alba

Buddleia butterfly

Swiss weekender

Three days in Switzerland with hot weather (>30 degrees every day). Great place but not such a success bird-wise. Apine Choughs at Rochers-de-Naye were superb, but the apparently common Alpine Accentors were nowhere to be seen. Maybe a longer walk was required but we didn't have the baby equipment for trekking. It was still an amazing place anyway, and the butterflies and wildflowers were fantastic. I did manage to see Nutcrackers after some searching, but they were calling from the top of some trees and I only managed poor views before I had to return to more family-related activities. I'll have to go back to see them properly next time, maybe a bit later in the year for proper vismig times. Switzerland is a pretty pricey place though.

HOB Air Show

Got up late this morning because of bad weather forecast, and it turned out to be glorious sunshine. Enough time for a jaunt to Dalbeath Marsh LNR where there was a spectacular air who, comprising mostly House Martins (50+) and Swift (20), but also some Swallows skimming the grasses and a couple of Sand Martin. They tailed off into the distance along the north side of the hill, so the real numbers could be much higher. Most importantly this means that Hill of Beath has clawed its way back level with Cullaloe on 79 species (and 79 %).

In a side note, one of the locals was fly fishing from a dinghy in the middle of the pond -

We all went down to Montreux ...

Swiss weekend

9 species
Alpine Accentor
Alpine Chough
Nutcracker
Citril Finch
Rock Partridge
Wallcreeper
Black Pecker
Rock Thrush
Eagle Owl

From which I will happily accept 5. I'm not that animated by Eagle Owl, curiously, but Nutcracker is a must. Black Pecker would complete my European Pecker list (but not Western Pally - damn you Levaillant!). I also wouldn't mind too awfully bumping into one of my all time favourites - Pygmy Owl, previously encountered in a Polish trio of Pygmy Owl, Three-toed Pecker and Hazel Grouse. I wouldn't mind bumping into any or all of them, actually.

Wallcreeper would of course be outstanding, but I have trained myself never to expect it. I have my eyes on a nice gorge in Bulgaria for that anyway, unless my local patch in Turkey (Buyukcekmece Quarry) opens up again for winter business.

I feel like the top three are gimmes, and I certainly hope so since the top two are supposed to be "common" at Rochers-de-Naye and the main bird I want to see is Nutcracker. If I haven't seen one in the first two days then there may be some sweating/swearing. Although since it's going to be 35 degrees, that's probably true anyway.