Once a month the people who do Wetland Bird counts as part of the long-term British Trust for Ornithology WeBS survey scheme go out and record the birds on their site or sites. My sector of the Inner Firth of Forth runs between Port Seton and Morrison’s Haven, just across the road from the Prestongrange Industrial Museum.
My mum’s family have links to the area and on my surveys I pass rocks where I used to go fishing when on holiday at my gran and grandad’s house in Prestonpans.
Much of my survey route follows part of the East Lothian section of the John Muir Way.
Today was cold and blustery with easterly winds but large numbers of eider. The Forth Estuary is one of the major sites for eiders around the coast of the British Isles.

Male, female and juvenile Eider ducks.
Some good photos looking out towards North Berwick Law in the distance to the east and then back towards Leith and Arthur’s Seat to the West.
I’m thinking of offering some portion of the East Lothian John Muir Way as a fixed ‘Hills of Hame’ walk, perhaps based on a leaflet I saw that runs from Leith to North Berwick, based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Catriona, the sequel to Kidnapped. Appropriately, there is a link to Prestongrange in the book, as the Lord Advocate of Scotland is Lord Prestongrange.
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