New Birds

South-easterlies overnight, but it was late afternoon before any birds turned up, and then it was just a small fall. Thrashed the patch between 4pm and 8pm  - 3 Willow Warbler, 1 Garden Warbler, 1 Lesser Whitethroat, 1 Pied Flycatcher, 12 Black-tailed Godwit and a Ruff.

Black-tailed Godwits

Pied Flycatcher

Willow Warbler

Still Happening

Still quite a few migrants about the patch - 1 Pied Flycatcher, 1 Lesser Whitethroat, 7 Swallows, 1 Sand Martin, 2 Whinchat, 3 Willow Warbler, 2 Ruff, 1 Whimbrel and 2 Knot.

Pied Flycatcher

Whinchats

A fine afternoon at Scatness

Migrants at last

Easterlies and rain! On the patch today - 12 Willow Warblers, 1 Pied Flycatcher, 1 Swallow, 3 Knot, 1 Grey Heron and a Little Stint.

Pied Flycatcher

Willow Warbler

August

During August I've been stuck doing 12 hour nights, so this has left hardly any time for birding the patch - with travelling to Lerwick and back each day I only get about 30 minutes birding time in the morning and another 30 minutes in the afternoon, so just as well that my garden is now pretty overgrown with plenty of cover. The garden did pretty good in August with a steady trickle of migrants - Icterine Warbler on the 21st and Barred Warbler, Garden Warbler and a Pied Flycatcher on the 28th, plus Willow Warblers on most days.


Garden Warbler

Pied Flycatcher

Other Bits

A few other bits and bobs from Fair Isle -

Pied Flycatcher

Common Redpoll

Waxwing

Debris

A few shots from South Mainland over the last week.

Pied Flycatcher - Hoswick

Snow Buntings - Scatness

Spotted Flycatcher - Swinister

Day of Pigs

The south-easterly continues with, weirdly, an influx of Pigeons ! aside from the usual bird table raiding Rock Doves there were one each of Wood Pigeon, Collared Dove and Turtle Dove. Elsewhere the 3 Goldfinch were still in the garden along with 2 Blackcaps and 2 Willow Warblers, a male Pied Flycatcher was out on the cliffs, an Arctic Skua and 3 Golden Plover on the headland and a Song Thrush, a Chiffchaff and 5 Swallows were around the loch.

Pied Flycatcher

Song Thrush

Cliffs and walls

With a strong north-easterly blowing, the best places on the patch were the west cliff and sheltered walls, Whilst not spectacular there was plenty going on. 11 Song Thrush, a Dunnock and a Blackcap were along the cliffs and 5 Wheatear were sheltering around the stone walls. A single Little Stint was at the back of the Loch, this was a new bird, sporting a shiny new leg iron, a Jack Snipe was also there. The only other productive are was my garden with a Yellow-browed Warbler, male Blackap and a Pied Flycatcher.

Blackcap

Dunnock

Little Stint

Pied Flycatcher

Song Thrush

Pied Flycatcher

Just did the gardens and thistles around the patch today, 1 Pied Flycatcher, 8 Willow Warbler and a Lesser Whitethroat.

Pied Flycatcher

Willow Warbler

Migrants

Still south-easterly, but now with a few more birds - 2 Pied Flycatchers and 2 Garden Warblers ! not much really. Still a lot of waders about including 12 Knot, 15 Sanderling, 8 Ruff and a Common Sandpiper.

Garden Warbler

Pied Flycatcher

All Gone

All the Little Stints from the patch seem to have bogged off, I didn't see a single one today, or any Curlew Sands, a few decent birds were kicking about though - the Spotted Redshank was around the Loch, a Bar-tailed Godwit was in the cow field and a juv Little Gull (year-tick) was in West Voe before flying over to Scord,
In the garden the Pied Flycatcher remains, joined now by a Willow Warbler and a Blackcap.

Bar-tailed Godwit

Little Gull

Pied Flycatcher

The Gale

The weekend has been filled with a northerly gale blowing like mad, so telly was the order of both days with the GP qualifying and Wigan & Saints challenge cup final on Saturday and the GP race and Man U thrashing Arsenal 8-2 today. I did keep a look out in the garden though - 1 Barred Warbler still there yesterday and a Pied Flycatcher today.

Rain

South east winds all day and loads of rain ! A few hours around the patch in horrible conditions resulted in 2 Willow Warblers, a Garden Warbler, a Pied Flycatcher and very wet clothes !

Mostly Singles

Mostly singles of everything on the rock today - Rosefinch (a red one this time), Garden Warbler, Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Pied Flycatcher and Greenshank. Multiples were 3 Willow Warblers, 4 Swift and 9 Swallows.

Common Rosefinch

Pied Flycatcher

Whitethroat

Waggy.

Yellow Wagtail added to the patch year list with a bird on one of the beaches in front of the house, elsewhere around the patch - 3 Blackcaps, 2 Willow Warblers, 2 Pied Flycatchers, 4 Redstarts, 1 Spotted Flycatcher, 1 Whitethroat, 1 Garden Warbler, 1 Whinchat and a Song Thrush. Wader wise, there was 6 Knot, 5 Ruff, a Bar-tailed Godwit and a Common Sandpiper. Still a bit hard going with a strong south easterly still blowing and lashing down with rain for most of the day.

Pied Flycatcher.

Yellow Wagtail.

Whitethroat.

Bar-tailed Godwit.

Common Sandpiper (not some weird long billed, wing barred small Shearwater !).

Ruff.

Spotted Flycatcher.

More.

More Migrants in the garden than on the rest of the patch ! This isn't too surprising as I reckon my garden is probably now the largest patch of trees at Scatness. In the garden - a Pied Flycatcher, a Redstart, 2 Spotted Flycatchers, a Garden Warbler, 2 Willow Warblers, 2 Blackcaps and a Whitethroat, on the rest of the patch - a Ruff, 11 Wigeon, 5 'alba' Wagtails, 13 Sanderling and a long overdue Song Thrush.

Blackcap.

Pied Flycatcher.

Ruff.