We got incoming

A moderate south-easterly last night and this morning, though no signs of any migrants fresh in this morning when I checked the heligoland and plantation. All very peaceful, but on the cusp of May, and with south-easterlies, you have to assume the next day or two will deliver something, if only reasonable numbers of common [...]

Kumlien’s Gull

Stopped off on my way to the ferry this morning to check out the possible Kumlien’s Gull, and found it loafing on the beach bothering a piece of seaweed. Whilst I can’t pretend that gulls inspire any great enthusiasm in me, a Kumlien’s Gull is still better than a poke in the eye with a [...]

Alpine Birds

Oh, how I’d like to think this was a post to celebrate finding a Rock Bunting or an Alpine Accentor this morning before breakfast… but of course, it’s not. (Though I would just like to put on the record my return to predictive form where birds are concerned – mist-netting yesterday evening in the plantation with [...]

The dove from above

Eurekakakaka! Migrants, even if a couple are everso slightly plastic.
Working on the chicken and rabbit-proofing of the new yard on Saturday evening, my uber-finely tuned dove senses started jangling – in the gloom a slim silhouette on the telegraph wires looked good for a dove of some sort or other, but by the time I’d legged it back into [...]

Filthy twitching

Dropped in to Tingwall to see the long-staying Ring-necked Duck again this afternoon. This meant a detour of a mile from my normal route back into town, so strictly speaking constitutes a twitch I guess. I feel cheap and dirty now.
As usual, it wasn’t hard to find, and with better light conditions than the other [...]

Move along…

…there’s nothing to see here.
And yesterday evening, there certainly wasn’t. Felt inspired by news of the discovery of a Subalpine Warbler down in the south mainland, and gave my end of the island a thorough flogging to find a nice sylvia all of my own. Predictably, nothing doing. In fact, apart from a half dozen confiding Twite [...]

In which I get a bigger digger

Complete result this weekend in the absence of any nice birdies to blog about. I devoted the weekend to getting last year’s kale yard dug over and ready for planting in the next week or two, and then gritting my teeth for the deeply unpleasant task of digging from scratch (by hand) the much larger [...]

Wood Duck

A proper lifer today, or at least, one can only hope it will prove to be… A message on the grapevine that RF had found a drake Wood Duck at Brow Loch was enough to send me south after work on a speculative outing before catching the late ferry home. That and an email from [...]

Taking stock of Hoopoe and Hawfinch

An excellent day today – bright sunshine, clear skies, and a moderate south-southwesterly. I spent most of the day working on building some more chicken runs for the breeding trios and quads, but all the meantime kept half an eye on the sea, skies and fields around me. Masses of displaying Curlew activity, and Skylarks and [...]

More migrants

Two days of south-easterlies, and it’s all go here. There’s been a massive fall of Goldcrests – at least 6 of them in the plantation, and briefly outside my back door before they realised conifers were in again this season.  And Robins… I can hardly move for the 2 of them. 3 Chiffchaffs too threatening a [...]