Fraserburgh Harbour

After a couple of quiet days we'd planned a trip to Peterhead and Fraserburgh to find some white-winged gulls. With a heavy drizzle in Perth it didn't look a sensible decision, but I promised Mrs L it wouldn't rain in Peterhead and it didn't (much).

Can't say we'll be in a hurry to get back to Peterhead, okay the (minor) drizzle didn't help and we did see three Iceland Gulls in the harbour, but you wouldn't exactly call the harbour area scenic.

Continuing on to Fraserburgh we parked up for lunch overlooking Fraserburgh Bay, watched Oystercatchers, Redshank & Gulls bathing at a stream outlet. Then an Iceland Gull joined them and we got some good shots of it bathing and then preening on the beach. On to the harbour area and forgetting the birds, this was a harbour of serious boats, with serious nets being coiled out of a warehouse onto a lorry then re-coiled onto the boat. Ice factories, forklifts working but no restrictions on us wandering and driving around. I enjoyed soaking up this atmosphere, serious respect to those that go out and work on these boats. It's certainly not for me, but I do appreciate what they do and I do enjoy getting up close to the mechanics of their trade, the product of their trade is okay too.

Okay, back to the birds and more sightings of Iceland Gulls, then fleetingly on a roof a Glaucous Gull - so that's both white-wings ticked. Found another Iceland on the rocks outside the harbour, took a few photos then when I returned to the car Mrs L pointed out another just floating out of view round the point. So I climbed up to a good viewpoint and got a few good shots of what proved to be another Glaucous Gull. Check out RCB's Blip for the photo.

Once again returning to the car, Mrs L sent me off again for an adult Iceland Gull on the rocks - no not an exotic cocktail - just an exotic model. More photos in the camera and then finally we're heading home. Unfortunately the Bervie Chipper was shut when we passed, shame it'd have been nice to round the day off with fish & chips.