Saturday 15 October 2011

Shetland Day 5

A disappointing day, with not much seen. Started at Uyeasound, where we wasted over an hour waiting for an interesting juvenile Aythya sp to flap its wings or fly, and hopefully confirm that it was what it looked like, a Lesser Scaup. However, when the Tufted flock did eventually fly, it clearly had white extending on to the primaries. Presumably it was some sort of horrible hybrid (Lesser Scaup x Tufted?), but it did look good apart from the wing pattern. Martin Garner (who arrived just before the flock flew) agreed, which made us feel a little better about it!

After that we checked various sites around Unst, but saw very little apart from a Redstart in the burn at Burrafirth, the two Common Rosefinches at Norwick and a couple of Hen Harriers at Burrafirth and Northdale. We drove past the OBP site, but there were too many people there so we gave that a miss. Weather continues to look unpromising, with more westerlies forecast for the foreseeable future. It may be going more north-westerly by Friday, which is marginally better, but at the moment it doesn't look like we're going to get any easterlies at all.

No comments: