Mission accomplished

Scooted down to Loch of Bosquoy with the canine assistant and found conditions to be pretty reasonable, the wind dropped and viewing conditions were excellent. Most of the Whoopers had left earlier, though two of the nine still remained.

A quick scan of the water found the drake Goosander, for a few moments until the Peregrine arrived. Stooping at the Teal I watched it skim the lockh and settle on a wall. Great views were obtained, this was a sub-adult, so a different bird from the one I'd seen last weekend. When I looked back the Goosander had gone.

The hound and I worked our way down the loch, finding Pochard, Shoveler and Goldeneye on the way. The second small flock of Tufted were at the far end and an initial view raised my suspicions. Got a bit closer and the suspicions were confirmed, a smaller, paler Aythya, pale patches at the base of the bill, no tuft and an interesting head shape, best of all a grey bill with the black restricted to the nail. All looked good for Lesser Scaup. Seeing the wing was always going to be tricky though. The birds were feeding and none were wing flapping or preening. However a dog walking accomplice was enlisted (the land owner) and a flush... resulted in the ducks flying to the middle of the loch, the wrong way. A not great view seemed to indicate grey not white in the hand but the view was far from conclusive. Try again tomorrow.

Front bird is the suspect

When I got close to home the Peregrine was terrorising the feral pigs but without success.

A follow up visit in the afternoon had to be postponed to tomorrow as the chimney sweep arrived.