Saturday 30 January 2016

Second winter Common Gull with partial tail band

Bumped into this fella today at Moast Beach, I have seen 2w Common Gulls with partial tail bands before, but not very often. It seems to be a plumage that is not very common at all among Common Gulls.
Common Gull

Sumburgh runway

Friday 29 January 2016

Dirty Gertie

With Storm 'Gertrude' raging all day (winds at Scatness peaked at 111mph !), it was just too mad to even consider going out birding, so here's a few photos of Quendale Bay at the height of the storm.

Thursday 28 January 2016

Kumlien's

As the weather was a bit shite, I had resigned myself to just checking fly-bys from the living room window. There were a fair few gulls heading south in a constant stream, so I mainly just scanned through these, and then I picked up a white-winger out over the sea and heading towards Moast Beach. As there were plenty of Gulls feeding there yesterday, I decided to brave the elements and head down there -  and bingo! a 3w Kumlien's Gull feeding in the surf.

Wednesday 27 January 2016

Gulls

Back out on the patch today, and there are now 3 Common Scoters with the Velvet Scoter in West Voe, plus a fly-by Merlin there. On the Scatness peninsula there was just 6 Golden Plover and a Meadow Pipit. Moast Beach was heaving with Gulls (by Scatness standards anyway) with about 300 Gulls feeding among the waves, in which were 4 Black-headed Gulls (including a pink hued bird), a rather heavily shawled Herring Gull and a rather interesting long winged, dark Herring Gull. Both Red-throated and Great Northern Divers were in Quendale Bay.
Merlin
Pink hued Black-headed Gull
Common Scoters with Velvet Scoter
Golden Plovers
Hooded Crow (taken with trail cam)
Heavily shawled Herring Gull
Long winged, dark Herring Gull
Red-throated Diver
The coastguard on a bird scaring exercise in West Voe

Tuesday 26 January 2016

18th - 26th January Update

18/1 - 4 Fieldfare and 18 Golden Plover in front of the house.

19/1 - 2 Common Scoter and the Velvet Scoter in West Voe, Peregrine over the house.

21/1 - 2 Common Scoter, 1 Velvet Scoter, 26 Goldeneye, 3 Great Northern Diver in West Voe. 1 Song Thrush, 2 Fieldfare, 1 Redwing and a Meadow Pipit at Scatness.

26/1 - 1w Glaucous Gull past the house.
Fieldfares
Full Moon (almost!)
West Voe in the snow
A frozen Loch of Gards
Another sunset from the house

Sunday 17 January 2016

Whoopers

On the patch today - 2 Common Scoter have now joined the Velvet Scoter in West Voe along with 19 Goldeneye.With most of the freshwater lochs frozen over, it wasn't too surprising to find a bit of stuff moving about, 2 Whooper Swans were flying back and for around Scatness for most of the day, in the afternoon 122 Golden Plover headed south and a single Fieldfare appeared in the garden.
Whooper Swans
Common Scoters
Quendale Bay