Nearly time to go home

It was a lovely sunny day today here in Shetland, so we decided to go bird spotting. We saw lots of lovely birds – Robins, Black Caps, Chiff Chaffs and Gold Crests. I took some snaps of the Gold Crests with my camera.

There was also a nasty grey and white bird at Sumburgh Farm eating the other birds. I think it might have been a Shrike. The RSPB should do something about it.

Then we were told about a Bonelli's Warbler at Lerwick, so we went there and looked at it, but it was a bit boring. There were a lot of men in coats chasing it around, so we didn't stay long. I was also pleased to see some Collared Doves here, which was a new bird for my List.

After that we looked at some other places, but didn't see many other birds. Then we came home and had our tea and now I'm drinking some whisky. Tomorrow we are going to go to some other places to look at birds.

Where's our Bluetail then?

Another nine hours in the field today, including walking all the way from Virkie to the lighthouse, in apparently ideal weather conditions, and for what? Pretty much fuck-all, that's what. At least it wasn't just us though – the only new rarity found anywhere in Shetland today was a Black-throated Thrush near Scalloway. Can't be arsed to write anything else tonight. Maybe it will happen tomorrow....

Nine hour marathon

A look round the crop fields first thing produced not a lot other than 9 Lapland Buntings and a Greenland-type Common Redpoll. Then, stopping only to stock up on provisions for the day at the Toab shop, Mark and I set off heroically to walk to Quendale. We already knew there had been a Dusky Warbler there earlier, and we did manage to see it, but views were poor. In the same area we found this obliging Red-breasted Flycatcher, and also a couple of Yellow-browed Warblers.

But that was about it for all our efforts. We narrowly missed finding an Olive-backed Pipit at the bottom end of the burn; presumably it had dropped in after we'd walked that section. Or maybe we're just not very good at finding rare birds. Either way, we didn't see it, and it was found by the usual Quendale suspects, Paul Harvey and Roger Riddington, accompanied by Martin Garner. On hearing this news we walked back up the burn for a second time with them, mainly because we were worried they would find something else we'd missed! We had further crap views of the Dusky Warbler, but nothing new.

With birds continuing to arrive all over Shetland today, and more easterlies forecast for tomorrow, all we can do is keep plugging away and hope that eventually we will find something good.

Persistence pays off

So, what did you do on the 8th of October in Shetland in a perfect south-easterly? Um, I took some nice photos of a Twite, a couple of Shags and a Turnstone:

In between taking photos of common birds we thrashed around the crops at Toab and saw a Yellow-browed Warbler and not much else, then went down to the Sumburgh area. I read recently on a blog that shall be nameless that there are '160 observers scouring every nook and cranny of Shetland' at the moment. Well if there are that many people here I haven't seen them - there were precisely three of us scouring the entire area between Grutness and Sumburgh Head this afternoon. Maybe the other 157 were all off twitching all the rare birds which turned up all over the place today and gave us the motivation to carry on, even though we hadn't seen much other than lots of Goldcrests.

After several laps of the farm, we walked down the 'White's Thrush ditch' towards the hotel, and stumbled upon a nice Pallas's Warbler feeding behind a wall with two Yellow-broweds, two Chiffchaffs and two Spotted Flycatchers. Didn't manage to get any keepable photos of it though because, as has been noted before, I can't take photos of rare birds.

After this we went up to the lighthouse, where, apart from lots more Goldcrests, we didn't see a lot apart from this newly-arrived Short-eared Owl:

The weather looks even better tomorrow, so we'll probably do it all again, although I suspect that being a Saturday there will be a few more people around.

Halfway House

Six days gone; another six to go.

Another quiet day with continuing 'nothingy' moderate southerly winds. Walked round the Toab crop fields/iris beds/ditches several times, but nothing new apart from a Barred Warbler. Got a reasonable photo of a Lapland Bunting perched on a fence first thing, and also a nice Shetland Starling (1st-winter male for anyone who's interested in that sort of thing) in Rob's garden this evening. Tomorrow, however, looks like a totally different kettle of halibut, with the wind going round to south-east again, and then full-on easterly for several days. Early night tonight, and no whisky. Mainly because we finished it last night!

I was going to keep this and pretend I'd taken it in Leicestershire when I got back, but I thought that might have been a bit too obvious...

Gratuitous Twitching

With the weather looking unpromising for finding anything round here, we headed north today for a spot of twitching. First stop was Voe, where there were a few birds, but nothing terribly exciting. However, a major discovery was that pies are available for sale direct from the bakery there. Enquiries were made, and – result! – the 'King of Pies', the fabled macaroni cheese and bean was 'obtained', along with a cheese, bean and tattie. Having eaten the macaroni pie, I am in full agreement with Mark that this is unbeatable (at least in Shetland – I think the Lochinver Larder's offerings might top it, at least in the pastry department!).

On to Eshaness, where the Buff-bellied Pipit at Tangwick initially only showed itself to Mark before disappearing. So we went off to the lighthouse to look at the 2 Buff-breasted Sandpipers – I got my regulation piss-poor photo of one of them:

We then went back to where the Buff-bellied Pipit had been earlier, and had crippling views of it from the car. This time even I couldn't fuck it up – this is undoubtedly the best photo of a BB rarity I've ever taken, although that's not saying much. It was also my 200th Shetland bird – damn, I forgot to get that T-shirt made up!

After this we didn't see a great deal, my first Yellow-browed Warbler of the holiday and a Jack Snipe, both at Isbister, being the only birds of any note.

Silly photos of the day – Mark being attacked by a ravenous pie-eating cat at Orbister: