Snow

Quite a large amount of snow dumped on the patch over the last couple of days, but there has been very little change bird wise - Fieldfares increased from about 30 to 120+, Greylags went up to around 180 and the Ducks have been frozen off the Loch.

Eiders

Fieldfares

Robin

Another Goldfinch

Another Goldfinch on the patch today, that's a total of 6 birds this autumn. Around the rest of the patch - 2 Blackcaps, Merlin (in front of the house), 60 Long-tailed Duck, 5 Red-breasted Merganser (West Voe), 12 Redwing, 3 Fieldfare and a Robin.

Goldfinch

Fieldfares

Long-tailed Ducks

Merlin

Blackcap

Weather

Shocking weather today with winds gusting up to 70mph and lots of rain, even with my sense of adventure, my decision to check all the cliffs was probably a bit risky.
Plenty of birds in, day totals - 120 Redwing, 40 Fieldfare, 5 Song Thrush, 4 Blackcaps, 3 Goldcrest, 1 Chiffchaff, 7 Robin, 1 Common Redpoll, 3 Wheatear, 2 Reed Bunting (only record this year), 55 Barnacle Geese, 3 Pintail, 5 Whooper Swan and a Short-eared Owl.

Blackcap

Barnacle Geese

Fieldfare

Pintails

Reed Buntings

Wheatear

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

More Year-ticks

Three more year-ticks for the patch today - a Pochard on the loch, a Jack Snipe flushed from the spring and 38 Snow Buntings south over Moast beach, that's now 56 species and 76 points for the PWC. Also around the patch today - Barnacle Goose (present for the last 4 days), 3 Fieldfare and 11 Snipe.

Barnacle Goose

Fieldfare

Pochard

The Bullies are Back

The highlight of the day was the return of the Bonxies, with at least 2 kicking about in the bay, also on the patch - the ad Glaucous Gull was on the Loch (until the coastguard helicopter scattered everything !), the Robin is still in the garden (it's been present since last November), and a single Fieldfare around the stone walls. Great Skua. Oystercatcher. Robin. Fieldfare.

Turds

A nice south-easterly wind with a bit of rain, and the only improvement on the patch was 4 Fieldfare and 6 Redwing !!! Redwing.

Fieldfare.

Windows

Still stuck indoors, so the only birds that I'm able to look at is the stuff thats in front of the living room window - so far this week a couple of Merlins, Golden Plover, Red-throated and Great Northern Divers, a few Long-tailed Ducks, Redwing and Fieldfare.


Merlin.

Fieldfare.

Redwing.

'White-tailed' Starling.

Stormy Monday.

A proper stormy Monday, with a raging south-easterly gusting 60 mph ! No sign of anything in West Voe, not surprising as the sea was being whipped up to a white froth, elsewhere around the patch - 2 Lapland Buntings, a Snow Bunting, 20+ Fieldfare, 15 Redwing and a Robin.

Fieldfare.

Here they come.

Here they come at last - a decent amount of birds kicking around the patch, pity that the weather was so shite, with force 5 winds and lots of rain ! After 2 changes of clothes and minus a baseball cap (blew off over the cliff), today's thrash resulted in -1 Lesser Whitethroat, 20 Song Thrushes, 4 Goldcrest, 3 Brambling, 4 Common Redpoll, 3 Wheatear (including the re-appearance of the albino), 23 Lapland Buntings, 1 Dunnock, 5 Chiffchaff, 1 Whinchat, 2 Blackcap, 1 Robin, 1 Garden Warbler, 1 Fieldfare, 1 Siskin and the star of the show - a Red-breasted Flycatcher - not only a patch tick, but bird number 200 on my Scatness list !


Red-breasted Flycatcher. (crap photo in crap weather).

Chiffchaff.

Fieldfare.

Song Thrushes.

Albino Wheatear.

In light of recent incedents of a tour group climbing over walls and cutting through gardens, a new neighbourhood watch scheme has been set up at Scatness -