Peaceful

Incredibly quiet at the north-east end of the isle today. After a night of torrential rain and south-easterlies, one might have expected better of the day. Out at lunchtime for a wander around in warm, calm conditions, and just a Robin kicking around the house and a Chiffchaff in the plantation to show for my [...]

More hot Little Bunting and pussy action

Now there’s a blog title. If that shameless attempt at luring sad wankers (and frustrated adolescents) to my swell my blog’s visitor-roll doesn’t work, I don’t know what will. Enjoy.
Covered most of the isle today, though not I think seeing an enormous amount that was actually new in – but plenty of recycled birds from [...]

Red-breasted Flycatcher

A somewhat frustrating day at the office today, knowing that the wind had eased a little, and there would be birds to find out there. Knowing there’d be no daylight by the time I got home, I needed to choose a sheltered garden en route to the ferry after work, and trust I’d get lucky [...]

Bunting hunting

Had a really good hour out with JLI at lunchtime wandering around Sandwick – given the atrocious conditions, (south-easterly gales still, with persistent rain showers – horrible to bird in, but promising for when it finally eases), I dared to hope for a Reed Bunting at the least. And the first bird we clapped eyes on [...]

Surfin’ to Bressay

Surely the lamest punning headline to date. Apologies. But no apologies for a glut of photos of one of my favourite ducks of all, a male Surf Scoter. They are just such funky beasts… For once, despite the silly range, I managed a few shots I’m not too unhappy with – which may well have [...]

Here comes the big one

Now there’s an optimistic blog title if ever I wrote one. But you have to hope. Some people forecast imminent changes in the weather using seaweed. Some refer to pine cones. Me, I swear by the occurence of anchor-handlers. The more of them moored offshore from us and not out plying their trade in the [...]

It’s oh so quiet…

…but not for long, I suspect.
With JLI unavoidably away at sea, and JA making his house waterproof, we were woefully underwatched today. God knows how we managed.  Not a great deal to be missed though, just the usual suspects left over from the past few days. I took it pretty easy after a blank day of [...]

The owl in a south-easterly came off the sea…

Working from home today, and so limited in the main to looking wistfully out of the window from time to time. Actually, not that wistfully as the weather was absolutely vile for a lot of the day – vile that is from a comfortable, desk-monkey perspective. From a birder’s viewpoint, it looks promising for the [...]

Red-flanked Bluetail

After a failed attempt to see the juvenile Sabine’s Gull in Lerwick harbour this morning, I’d resigned myself to a birdless day. News then of one of the few species I’ll break my loose no-local-twitching-unless-it’s-a-lifer rule * for was most welcome – a Red-flanked Bluetail at Sandgarth. Went there on my way home this evening, [...]

Tidying up the CF card

Came across a photo of another Yellow-browed Warbler this morning while doing some overdue housekeeping on my camera’s CF card. A photo I’d overlooked, as it was an opportunistic single shot taken of this bird in fairly poor viewing conditions – windy, and intermittently rainy too. And when things went a little mad the following [...]