Another enjoyable day birding around the isle, although nothing earth-shattering to show for it. Started around home with the now highly territorial complement of Robins, and a couple of Chiffchaffs in my tattie yard. They certainly weren’t there yesterday, which begs the question of where these things come from. I suspect passerines make landfall on the hill and work their way inland over the course of a day or two. Nothing was likely to be making a wind-assisted landfall on the isle today, as there wasn’t a breath of wind to speak of – very calm and mild, and the sun was out for much of the day.

Working my way around the island, the 3 White-fronted Geese had moved to Challister, and were now keeping well apart from the Greylags at Brough. The Greylags however had attracted another grey goose species, in the form of a pair of Pink-footed Geese. Isbister, Sandwick and Symbister were all more of the same as the day before, and I found myself checking Ringed Plovers and Teal on Symbister meadows in the extremely faint hope of something more interesting lurking amongst them. Desperate times…

13 Long-tailed Duck in the channel between the island and Linga, and finally I was onto Brough. A whole lot of effort for little return (1 Chiffchaff, 1 Woodcock) until I stopped to check the now vacant pig field for snipe, and caught a flash of sulphur yellow – a Grey Wagtail. Bird of the day I suppose, and that tells you all you need to know about how disappointing the last 3 weeks of south-easterlies have been.

Big trek around the isle today in fine weather after yet more fresh south-easterlies and rain. Noticeable increase in Robin numbers, with 18 logged on my travels. Song Thrushes still much in evidence too, but warblers significantly down again – just 1 Chiffchaff to show for the whole day, and 4 Goldcrests. The main warbler event failed to happen – the Dusky Warbler JA had identified a couple of days ago was no longer around – and it was easy to be definitive about this, as the crop it had been favouring had been reduced to bare earth and stubble by sheep. A couple of Twites there, but no Dusky.

And so to Isbister. As always, it promised so much. All those fences simply crying out for a Long-tailed Shrike… and as ever, there was nothing to show for it. (Well, apart from the day’s only Chiffchaff, and yet more Robins). I think I may have cracked the conundrum that is Isbister during today’s visit – a thorough couple of hours doing it turned up no fewer than 7 cats at large. You do the math.

Heading back for home, and a quick check of the Greylag flock at Brough crossroads. Bingo. 3 albifrons White-fronted Geese. All the geese flushed when a family came to the nearby playpark, and the White-fronts peeled away from the Greylags and headed north. For a moment, I thought I was in with a chance of following them north and getting them from the driveway as they flew by, but they circled Vatshoull, and headed back to Brough. Woe.

Excellent day today birding around my end of the isle – after another night of fresh south-easterlies and some more heavy rain, it had eased back to a light breeze by first light, and with fog sitting just offshore there were clearly new birds coming in to the land they could see. Thrush numbers back up again, with double figures of Blackbird and Song Thrush accompanying increased numbers of Redwing and Fieldfare. A walk around yielded 5 Robins (an increase), 2 Black Redstarts (1 new bird), 1 Brambling (presumably the semi-resident bird), and 5 Chiffchaffs. Also approximately 10 Goldcrest, though harder to be sure of them as those in the depths of the plantation tend to sit pretty tight.

New birds for the house yearlist aplenty in the space of an hour – a Jack Snipe flushed from the ditch at the foot of the drive (the first of 3 individuals I found during my walk), and a Woodcock flushed from the shore up towards the house a little later. It pitched down into the field behind the house, and was found again up there easily enough as it crept along the base of a drystone dyke. Okay, 2 new species isn’t really “aplenty” but they all count, and getting 2 species in a day this late on is a bonus.

Chiffchaffs much darker than the ones we had here last week – clearly from somewhere different, though god knows or cares less what race any of these might be. Happened on yet another black feral cat at Roadside – looked a lot bigger than the 2 recent casualties. The mother, perhaps. Daisy Dingo spinning on the lead to be slipped, but in the end we all settled for scaring it away from where it was evidently trying to catch a Robin with a temporary territory. (Note the shit photo of a black cat running away – one for the red-tops in a quiet news week, surely. The Beast of Skaw…)

So nothing rare or even scarce, but it felt like there was potential in the air. You wouldn’t have been surprised to find something, even this late in the game.

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 efforts. Significantly fewer Blackbirds around after days of plague proportions – the tattie yard peaked at 11 birds on Sunday.

Little Bunting still at Sandwick, and BM reported a possible second bird nearby. My bird from the weekend having moved down the isle? My hens have discovered where I am seed-baiting for buntings, and clean it out in the space of 15 frenzied minutes. I shall just have to start somewhere else away from their prying eyes.

Got an informed opinion about my snipe earlier in the autumn. Interesting!

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 previous days. A Brambling in my tattie yard first thing had presumably relocated from a few hundred yards away (and had moved on to the heligoland kale yard later on); and the Black Redstart JLI found yesterday on my drive was still there, mainly in the vicinity of the dead black feral cat by the foot of the drive. I feel a note to BB coming on…

Working my way down the isle just turned up a few Goldcrests, Robins and yet more Bramblings, but the latter mainly still in the places and numbers I’d seen them a week ago. Feeling a little disillusioned (but obscurely heartened by the lack of news from elsewhere in Shetland) I went to see the Little Bunting JLI and I found a couple of days ago. The perfect antidote, it was showing well.

Also nearby the same Lesser Whitethroat we saw 2 days ago.

Back home for lunch, and to dig some tatties I’d promised JLI and family for their Sunday lunch. Climbing into the yard, and there in front of me was a new Little Bunting. Result. Less resultful was it taking off, dropping briefly into a patch of weeds, and then going over the hill and towards the more sheltered heligoland yard. Heyho. A brief but significant bird for me – 102 on the house yearlist. Met up with JLI in the afternoon, delivered said tatties and some cabbagey stuff too, and after a beer to fortify ourselves it was back out into the field to give Brough a good going over. Brough delivered as usual, with a female Redstart and 2 Ring Ouzels (male and a female). All of which could easily be semi-residents, as have all been seen in Brough in the past week already. Oh, and a Chiffchaff, to which we didn’t need to play tristis calls in order to eliminate, er, tristis.

And so the day ended. Or rather, not quite… Back home for tea and crumpets, and time to get the dogs in from their dog-run for the night. And what should greet me when I went to the dog-run door? A hugely excited lurcher, and a freshly killed feral cat. Daisy Dingo clearly got a taste for pussy after the August feral cat kill, and had struck again with another of the small black feral numbers that have been lurking about the place recently, and this afternoon had shown the spectacular ill-judgement of slinking into the Dingo’s dog-run. That’s 2 down in the past 2 days – one road-kill, and one dog-kill – and given how attractive 1 dead cat was proving to be this morning for a Black Redstart, imagine what sort of chat 2 dead cats together might attract tomorrow…

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 while I had half an hour of sort-of-daylight to play with – by 5pm here on a cloudy day the light’s almost unworkable with now.

Still masses of thrushes as I drove to the garden of choice, with Redwings erupting from the roadside ditches, and small flocks of Fieldfares flying across the fields parallel to the road. The garden was still, unlike my speculative visit earlier in the week, and crawling with Blackbirds – mainly males, in a 3:1 ratio to females – 12 in view simultaneously at one point as they dug in the leaf litter, yopped fuchsia berries, and paced the lawns. 3 Robins also, mostly doing the skulky chat-thing through the borders and momentarily raising your hopes. This one wasn’t:

Far more interesting though was the bird I could hear calling non-stop in the depths of the undergrowth. Red-breasted Flycatcher… I was sure of it, but where was the bird? I kept going around the outskirts of the garden, hoping to find it flycatching from the trees at the edges, but after 20 minutes was beginning to give up any views as a lost cause. Finally, it flew out in front of me, perched on a fence-post, giving me a split second to lift the camera and shoot before it shot back into the thickets. Not enough stability, time or light by now to make much of it, but you can tell what it is!

On to the ferry with seconds to spare, and home feeling pretty pleased with myself. Red-breasted Flycatchers are always quality birds, even skulky bastard ones like this. At least it had plenty to say for itself until it came out into the open. Am now very much looking forward to tomorrow and Sunday – it’ll be dawn to dusk birding.

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 as we got out of the car was a passerine in flight, white outer tail feathers… Reed Bunting. And landed next to a Common Redpoll. All very promising.

Five minutes later, and we’d flushed another bunting from the edge of a garden. This one looked small though. It dropped into a nearby ditch, and on creeping up we found a smart Little Bunting bathing in a small pool in the base of the ditch. BM and JA phoned… BM on his way, JA in Lerwick. Heyho. By the time BM had arrived, the bunting had done a flit, and it took a little while and a fair amount of ground covered (and re-covered. And covered again) until we’d pinned it down. Following was taken through a gate, so you’ll have to excuse the blurry bits above and below the bird.

With a little time remaining before I had to get back to my laptop, we pressed on through Sandwick, refinding the male Yellowhammer JLI initially found yesterday, a Water Rail, and a Lesser Whitethroat. I think it’ll be a bit manic in Shetland when the wind finally does drop. Or at least, I hope so. Final bird of the day was a Jackdaw beside the road at Challister. Best find of the day – one of the small black feral cats dead at the foot of my drive. Presumably hit by a car. Heyho again – the birds won’t mourn its passing.

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 had something to do with the fact that I for once had a nice stable support for the lens – namely the Bressay lighthouse!

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 open North Sea, the worse the weather is going to be. (For worse, read absolutely splendid as it’s going to be a really snorty south-easterly).

Yesterday’s anchor-handler forecast was a whopping 3 on the Big Rusty Tug-thing Scale, which should mean we’re in for a decent spell of rarity-friendly weather. Yesterday’s efforts still failed to yield anything of note, with just a Chiffchaff spanging around Skaw. Try as I might, I couldn’t make it into a tristis. Not that I cared particularly. Bird of the day was a rather sad affair - a Yellow-browed Warbler on the edge of the planatation. Or rather more accurately, on the ground on the edge of the plantation. To be absolutely specific, the remains of a Yellow-browed Warbler – some wings, and a bit of head. Catted, presumably, as there are 3 unpleasant small black feral numbers mooching about the place. Daisy Dingo has her instructions…

No sign in the afternoon of the Bluethroat reported from Brough. Elusive wretch.

…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 unconsciousness yesterday with a flare-up of my neck and shoulder injury. Whoever said the drugs don’t work was both a liar, and wrong. Still, despite feeling considerably better today, I thought it best not to push it, so no iris-bed yomping for me today. Spent much of the afternoon scoping the flat-calm sea from the house, trying to get lucky with a Slavonian Grebe or an early Long-tailed Duck. No joy. Bird of the day (apart from a Rook in Brough, where it was doing my house yearlist no good whatsoever) was therefore a showy Goldcrest. You takes your pleasures where you finds them…