Taiga Flycatcher, Fetlar

Just a quick blog tonight – to upload a photo of the Taiga Flycatcher I took my Shetland Wildlife party to see on Fetlar this morning. Top bird.

More photos to follow in due course.
Later. A couple more photos. The bird was a real show-off once the rain stopped and the sun came out, and performed [...]

Comedown

After the adrenalin rush of a spontaneous dash down the road to Orkney for a new bird, today was always going to be a little bit of an anticlimax. A party of Pink-footed Geese heading south over the house this morning as I left for work was the alkaseltzer to the post-twitch blues, and another [...]

Sandhill Crane

For the second time in 6 years, today I found myself twitching a bird outside of Shetland (there is a fine distinction being made here between going to see birds when I happened to be in the vicinity anyway, and making a conscious effort to leave my home shores!) – the first bird was the iconic [...]

A Fair Isle weekend

Back today from a weekend on Fair Isle – primarily there for work purposes, but Saturday (and what little I saw of Sunday after a great night out at a party at Setter on Saturday – a party that saw me get back to the Haa at 5am!) was reasonable for birding – an Arctic [...]

Tufted Nothin’

As if a Blue-cheeked Bee-eater back down in Kent earlier this summer wasn’t gripping enough, my old adopted home county really pulled one out of the bag yesterday – a summer-plumaged Tufted Puffin. Ouch. To make matters that little bit worse, this was at Oare – a mere mile or so away from one of [...]

More Buff-breasts, and a dead dragonfly

A funny old day today – went to have my car looked at, and ended up being shown a dead dragonfly – MG had initially seen it zipping around outside his window yesterday, and then found it dead on the floor later in the evening. Not something you see every day up here, as the [...]

A lovely pair of Buff-breasts

The best and worst of news this morning – the visiting birders who’d found the vanishing Buff-breasted Sandpiper last Saturday had relocated it, now teamed up with a second bird. This time they had some photos, but… the birds had vanished by the time JLI got to the golf course. So when I eventually got out there this [...]

Fair Isle blog

It’s deathly here yet again today – a good trawl around the island this morning looking for waders (anything American would have done nicely, and specifically the pale snipe from a while ago, or yesterday’s Buff-breasted Sandpiper) produced absolutely sod all. The golf course particularly disappointing – the same 3 Ringed Plovers and 2 Dunlin [...]

Buff-breasted Sandpiper in the rough

An excellent start to the day – awoke at first light, felt the wrath of snorty north-westerlies battering the house, turned over and went back to sleep. Made another, more spirited attempt at getting up at 9.30am, and was mid-coffee when JLI called to let me know some visiting birders had found a Buff-breasted Sandpiper [...]

Booted Warbler

Just going to prove that no matter how dire the weather appears to be for birding here in Shetland, you should never, ever give up. Whether new in, or lurking undiscovered for a while, it mattered not a jot when news broke this afternoon of a Booted Warbler in the South Mainland at Channerwick. With [...]