Tuesday 16 October 2012

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

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