Autumn’s stirring

Some variable wind today that spent the morning havering between a southerly and a south easterly, before settling down this afternoon to a briskish south easterly. Went around the patch 3 times in the course of the day – a couple of Willows and a Garden Warbler in the morning (the Garden being an especially [...]

Shearwaters

Set the alarm for 5.30 this morning, and by midday was beginning to rue my early start. I’d forgotten how sapping and depressing seawatching can be. Endless streams of Gannets and Fulmars, occasional Great and Arctic Skuas, a very few Kittiwakes, and odd handfuls of Shag and Black Guillemot.
Wind was blowing south/south-westerly, at about [...]

Rebecca Nason

It’s dark outside, there’s a brisk south-westerly blowing and it’s starting to rain. I really should be asleep, as I’m planning on going seawatching early tomorrow morning (why, I couldn’t exactly say. Everyone else I know is doing it at the moment, in Scilly and Bridges of Ross. So I feel obliged to try from [...]

Go naked in Shetland

Am slowly getting used to this WordPress blog manager thingy, and in the past week I’ve discovered the statistics page, that tells you precisely how people have found your blog. It’s all usually very uninspiring, as 99% of people coming here come via a link on other, superior birding blogs (see blog roll opposite). [...]

Never get bored of Barred

Tense day at work today, as I’d left my mobile on the kitchen windowsill, where it could do me no good at all. Of course, the penny dropped about a mile from home and the prospect of returning for it and missing my ferry was too awful to contemplate. So the day was spent blissfully [...]

Shetland autumn birding

What with all these migrants deluging us so early in the season, and reading Blurredforum and seeing how many folk are planning on coming here this autumn for a week or two, some thoughts that may help those that do:
1. Thou shall not claim to have put any of the Shetland archipelago on the birding [...]

More warbler stuff

Blimey, it’s all go here. A text from BM this afternoon to say he’d got a Wood Warbler in his garden. Then this evening I refound JLI’s hitherto absent Barred Warbler in the plantation (am assuming it’s a re-find and not new in), and spent some time watching the still-present Paddyfield Warbler in the field, [...]

Paddyfield Warbler

Great start to the day – yesterday’s south-easterlies continued through the night, with a couple of rain showers. Yesterday JLI found a Barred Warbler in the plantation, so today’s action wasn’t altogether unexpected, though of course not a given, and a good surprise for all that.
Phone call from BM just as I was leaving [...]

More Shetland Two-barred Crossbill action

Went down to Sumburgh after work this afternoon and spent a happy 3 hours wandering around looking for (and eventually at) Two-barred Crossbills. Numbers of them there have been climbing steadily over the past couple of days, and were up to 9 by this morning. Needless to say, I maintained my usual Two-barred Crossbill record [...]

Boulmer Birder

A recommendation from the small hours when I really should be a-bed and dreaming of what birding the autumn has in store for me (strange to relate, this is not flowery prose for prose sake – I really did dream this last night: JLI and I were out birding on the isle, which had remarkably [...]