I'm too old for this

Went to bed at the ridiculous time of 02:45 this morning, woke up still pissed at about 8 o'clock, had a shower to wake me up a bit, staggered outside, saw another Yellow-browed Warbler (3 out of 3 now) and ate some porridge. What I should have done then was go back to bed. But the weather looked promising (warm, sunny and flat calm first thing, becoming light south-easterly and cloudier later) so we gave it about 78.5% and saw a few bits and pieces around south Mainland.

An annoying moment occurred early on as I was walking up the road towards Toab. Mark rang to say that the Rosefinch was in the big crop field; as I was on the phone to him a pipit flew over calling. Now, in early October, in Shetland with a south-easterly wind it really should have been an Olive-backed. But no – it landed right in front of Mark, who gave me the bad news that it was just a fucking Tree Pipit. Arse.

Then up to Sumburgh Head for the lunchtime 'window of opportunity' when birds seem to arrive. Today nothing at all arrived, although there were 6 Snow Buntings, and I even managed to get a half decent shot of one:


Levenwick is very underwatched and always looks good so we spent a couple of hours checking the various gardens there. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it was crap.

Back down south late afternoon we relocated a few scarce migrants that had been seen earlier at Grutness: a nice but unapproachable Bluethroat, another Rosefinch and a Short-toed Lark flying around with Skylarks. The Twite in the Grutness garden are often very approachable, and with lovely afternoon light I got a few photos including this one which I was particularly pleased with:

Dinner was again provided by Mark, a nice chicken stew with dumplings. The cats were very interested in the preparation of this. No idea why – I didn't even know cats liked leeks.

Shut up or you'll be going in the stew

No alcohol tonight, and hopefully an early night if I can get up off the sofa.