Two-barred Crossbill

Made a 5 minute detour on the way to catch the ferry home this evening, and went to Sandgarth to see a female Two-barred Crossbill. Not the easiest bird to see by any stretch of the imagination, being rather elusive in some of the very best habitat I’ve seen on Shetland – lovely dense fields [...]

Petrels

Finally got to bed last night at a halfway sensible hour, after spending the previous two nights petrel-luring with BM and JLI. Used an old but powerful Yamaha amp and some beefy TDL speakers to really blast petrel noises out to sea. We’re 30m above sea level, so with a carrying south-easterly the sound should [...]

The things twitchers say

Ah fuck. Come to think of it, I will have a bit of a rant about johnny-come-lately twitchers and the twatty jargon they use. I’ve already mentioned the abomination that’s “Icky” and “Melody” (see Blurredforum for a great example of the use of both, and the general arsiness of twitchers), but that’s just the tip [...]

Killer Whales

Or should that be Orcas? I never know. “Orcas” sounds a bit cooler, a bit like calling Great Skuas “bonxies”. But anyone calling a bonxie a bonxie outside of Shetland runs the risk of sounding like a bit of a twat. You never hear them calling Eiders “dunters” or Puffins “tammie nories”. But by their [...]

Right conditions wrong time

Grr, this is all a little frustrating. It’s pretty much perfect outside as I write – a fresh south-easterly, humid, showery weather… but it’s July. That can mean only one thing – it’s a rare swift sp or nothing now until August when the first Greenish Warblers start filtering through. (NB – not that any [...]