Currant affairs

Finally I’m indoors and sucking down a nice cold beer. Have spent much of today pruning and planting blackcurrant cuttings – 143 in the final reckoning. Impossible to say how may will strike, but even a handful would be a bonus. Good to see that the fuchsias, roses and snowberries Kath let me dig out [...]

It’s all gone Leone

Home this evening to find the Houll fairly hooching with waders, presumably after a day of much less disturbance than usual – the wind and rain this afternoon will have kept some of the usual dog-walkers at indoors. Flocks of Golden Plover on either side of the entrance track, Ringed Plovers running down the track [...]

All’s quiet on the eastern front

Back home this evening after another midweek trip to the Highlands. No Red Kites this time, alas. Just lots of Hooded x Carrion Crow types, mainly seen in their natural habitat – the carpark alongside the cinema on the outskirts of Inverness, drawn there by the happy coincidence of adjacent Burger King and Pizza Hut.
Back [...]

Manky gulls #1

…being the first in an occasional series.
I really should be saving this for the depths of winter. And indeed, it’ll probably resurface then, when times are hard and the blogging’s not easy. However, have just been out for a sortie to some promisingly repulsive muddy pools on the lookout for a rare wader, only to [...]

Of migrants and squid

A couple of tantalising texts during the course of the day from JLI – a Barred Warbler flirting around the heligoland yard, and a Black-tailed Godwit in my lower field. Hard to say which I wanted to stick around more until I got home. Shameless yearlister that I am, the godwit won out, so I [...]

A day of yuck… and an Icterine

A really grotty day today – strongish south-easterly wind, persistent rain, and generally wet and grey. Lovely! Met JLI mid-morning, and did the plantation and various bits of cover here – 3 Willow Warblers, and 3 Garden Warblers. A final walk along the shore came good, as a warbler flicked up the cliff face in [...]

Back to the Sandpiper

Back on the island, and not much doing. The strong south-easterlies never materialised in the afternoon, and a good trudge around the golf course was just that – a trudge. An awful lot of effort for 4 Dunlins… and a few mushrooms that are now drying in the conservatory.
The Pectoral Sandpiper is still on the [...]

Red Kites

A nervy day away today – work called me south, so I was anxiously phone-watching awaiting the text that would tell me JLI had nailed a good ‘un. Fortunately (for me, at least!) it never came. I’ll be back in the morning, so it’s all to play for.
Managed a little from-the-car birding on my way [...]

Pectoral Sandpiper, Common Rosefinch, and…

The south-easterlies have duly delivered a bird from an unexpected point of the compass – a Pectoral Sandpiper, pleasingly found by BM at the Houll. I’ve been checking the margins of this loch daily for the past few weeks, as it was looking hugely promising for once – the dry summer here has meant that [...]

Eastern promise

Some good fresh south-easterlies and showers overnight… hopefully something interesting will come in with it. Fired up by the news of a Greenish Warbler on Fair Isle, I made an effort this morning on my way to work to drop into the plantation. Nothing doing, just the now long-staying (well, the for the past few [...]