The City at Night

A few shots of Lerwick taken at night.

Brei Wick

Clickimin Broch

Soul Sold

Being as I've now sold my soul and am working nights in Lerwick, days out birding are few and far between. Managed to get a shot of a Scaup on Loch of Clickimin at the end of November.

A Room With a View

This was the view through the living room window from my settee this morning.

The digestive system of Waxwings must be pretty fast working, as fast as this one was eating bits of apple, it was coming out the other end. It must be pretty poor too, I noticed that the Starlings were eating the Waxwing Shit !

A late Blackcap in the garden on Sunday.

Traitors

So, as it's Shetland Waxwing Count this weekend, last night I put two big bags of apples out in the garden, to try and boost the numbers a bit. This morning and no Waxwings, I even played calls to try and bring them in - nothing, after waiting around for a couple of hours I gave up and made a start on the patch. The first birds I saw - Waxwings - 13 of them, they'd jumped ship and were in a garden further down the road - bloody traitors, photos a bit better today though in the lovely sunshine.

Resistance is Futile

I couldn't resist a few more Waxwing shots, being as there are 14 in the garden and it's too wet to do the patch.

Little Oik !

No sign of yesterday's Yellowhammer at Old Scatness - just a single Redwing there, 2 Whooper Swans on the Loch, plus another 8 flying North, the Mallard x Pintail hybrid was on the marsh along with 3 Grey Herons. Moast Beach was pretty productive with a female type Common Scoter offshore along with a Little Auk, which eventually came very close in, showing down to 3 feet in Stinky Geo ! The Waxwing flock in the garden had increased to 16 birds by late afternoon and another Fair Isle colour ringed Starling was at Colonial Place.

It's pretty good when Little Auks show this well.

Cormorants

Colour ringed Starling

Common Scoter

Redwing

Record Equaled

Equaled the patch year-list record of 150 (set in 2010 - see here), with a Yellowhammer at Old Scatness. Elsewhere on the patch there were 6 Waxwings in the garden this morning with 2 remaining until dusk and a couple of Robins and a female Blackcap still kicking around, plus 2 Snow Buntings near West Voe carpark.

Waxwing

Pretty quiet around the patch now with just 2 Robins, a female Blackcap and a Peregrine seen today, but at lunchtime, got a call concerning a Waxwing at Ness Engineering (cheers Russ) so had a quick walk down to see it, got it nailed and then it followed me and ended up in the garden !

Rude not to

It'd be rude not to have twitched the Chestnut-eared Bunting today, especially as it was only just over a mile away from the house. A second for Britain, a second for Shetland and a second for me !

A Visit to Harley Street

Up at Scalloway Health Centre, curiously on Harley Street, at about 9am looking for Shetland's and Scotland's first Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. No sign to begin with, but plenty of other birds around the surgery area - 40 Bramblings, a Willow Warbler, Sparrowhawk, Merlin and loads of Goldcrests, after about 45 minutes a Great Spotted Woodpecker flew in - but still no sign of the Lesser. At about 10 ish decided to have a bit of a walk round and check some of the other gardens out, after about three quarters of an hour doing this, heard that the Lesser Spot had been found near the surgery in Meadowfield road, as I'm not really built for running, a fast walk was in order by which time it had flown off, which, amazingly worked out really well for me, as Jim Nicolson was pointing furiously at the bottom of a Sycamore next to the road. I could see movement but not the bird until a cat walked up and started stalking the Pecker, at which point the bird just jumped on top of the wall less than 10 feet away ! Mega views until a van went past and the bird flew - a lot of thanks to Jim for giving me the nod, and a lot of sympathy too, as, although he had fired off a load of shots, he'd forgot to put a card in his camera !!!!
After this it was a quick visit to Lerwick, where the Blue Tit and Great Tit both showed well in Helendale - interestingly the Blue Tit is wearing a shiny new ring.

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker

Where the bird was originally found yesterday

The Helendale Blue Tit