Last of the good weather

Being as today is forecast to be the last fine day for a while with more typical Shetland weather returning tomorrow, I thought I'd get out and just take a few pics of various bits around the patch. I did manage a year tick though in the form of a Woodcock - well there may have been 2, I had flushed a bird by the end of the road and 90 minutes or so later flushed it or another from by Sanblister beach. Cracking views of 2 Merlins at Stinky Geo as they tried to get at the Starlings that had sought sanctuary in there to avoid the attack.

Merlin

Oystercatchers

Purple Sandpipers

Rock Pipit

Early evening from the house

Rock Pips

On the patch today were 3 Pintail and 2 Meadow Pipits, so I spent most of the time at Moast Beach with Rock Pipits, that is apart from the last hour of daylight, that was spent in the garden, 'scoping the Ward Hill skyline trying to get Snowy Owl on the house list.

Rock Pipits

Distant

Pretty much everything today involved some distance, first off was a Black-throated Diver with a couple of Great Northerns and a Red-throated off Lady's Holm - about 1km from the house. Then came the Brent Goose at Virkie, again about 1km away (although this bird is on Rob's patch, PWC rules state that I can count it as I saw it from within my patch). Elsewhere around the patch - 1w Glaucous Gull, Pochard and 3 Pintails on the Loch, 9 Rock Pipits on Moast Beach and 3 Fieldfare and a Redwing in the Spring Field.

Brent Goose

'Angelic' Glaucous Gull

Hooded Crow

Rock Pipits

Down to Earth

Back on the patch after the excitement of the mega yank - 1 Merlin, 55 Fieldfare, 30 Redwing, 1 Song Thrush, a Jack Snipe, 37 Barnacle Geese, 1 Chiffchaff, 1 Slavonian Grebe (in west voe), 3 Sanderlings and a female Blackcap. Strangest of all though was a pink legged Rock Pipit.

Barnacle Geese

Merlin

'pink legged' Rock Pipit

Redwing

The First Few Days

So far the 2011 patch year-list has consisted mainly of scanning out of the house windows, though I did manage to hobble to West Voe on the 2nd and got the 2 King Eiders (+ a load of other stuff - Twite, Goldeneye, Fieldfare etc). From the living room window there has been Hen Harrier, Merlin, Common Scoter and a fly by Tufted Duck (+ the odd Gannet)getting me up to the dizzying heights of 38 !


Curlew.

Purple Sandpiper.

Rock Pipit (with pink legs !).

Merlin.

The Patch Map.

The Return.

Today on the patch saw the return (or new birds maybe) of Lapland Buntings, with a flock of 14. Also a flock of 10 Snow Buntings were out on the headland, 3 Common Scoter were in West Voe, 2 Goldeneye, 5 Tufted Duck and a Scaup were on the Loch and a Robin and a Song Thrush were also seen.

Snow Bunting.

Rock Pipit.

Scaup (with Tufties).

2G,2B.

Too Good - well done to the Horror Channel as they are now doing a full re-run of Twin Peaks weekday nights at 9pm, an amazingly weird series that makes Lost look like a Sunday sermon (which, indeed, it did turn out to be !).

Scenes from Twin Peaks.

Too Bad - The Discovery Channel - find some new subject matter, for Zod's sake. We get the picture - the Nazis were bad, elephants need a lot of water, sharks are threatened, buildings fall down in earthquakes etc etc - most people have 'discovered' these things several times on the telly, time to change the channel name I think, to something like 'The Re-Hash Channel' !

One More.

One more added to the patch year list - a Barred Warbler in the gardens at the end of the Scatness road (accompanied by a Whitethroat), an elusive git that took two attempts during the day to get half decent views, when it finally did show fairly well, in the open on top of a wall for about 3 seconds, it was lashing down.
Elsewhere on the patch - a Black-throated Diver in Quendale Bay was presumably one of the birds that have been in the bay all summer, a single Knot in West Voe and a couple of Sanderling on Scord Beach, were the only waders of note. The day ended with 2 Swallows around West Voe car park.


Rock Pipit.

Knot.

Black-throated Diver.

An afternoon visit to the east side of Scatness resulted in this fine Otter, knocking a serious hole in the local Butterfish population (caught and ate 7 in 25 minutes !).

Otter (mmm, Butterfish !!)

Life's a Beach.

Out most of the day, checking all six of the Scatness beaches. Combined totals of 34 Knot, 10 Sanderling and 82 Dunlin, a Curlew Sandpiper was on Moast beach (year tick) and 2 Purple Sandpipers were around the 'stinky' Geo, the Greenshank is still kicking around and there are Wheatears everywhere (including 4 in the garden after I'd cut the lawn).
Autumnal Rustic in the moth trap last night.


The Scatness beaches.

Dunlin.

Knot.

Purple Sandpiper.

Wheatear.

Rock Pipit.

Turnstone.

Autumnal Rustic.

Deja vu

A crack at the patch, after a night of south-easterlies, and just a Lesser Whitethroat and a Chiffchaff ! The wind direction did have some effect though, as just around lunch-time, it was a bit of deja vu, with another trip to Unst, this time for a Shetland first - Iberian Chiffchaff. The bird showed reasonably well in the Sycamores at Halligarth, singing and calling (like a Siskin) under the canopy and generally being really active and flitty. Golden Oriole also heard calling in the trees there.

Iberian Chiffchaff.

Rock Pipit.

Fulmar.

Chiffchaff.

Wheatear.

Arctic Skua.

The 'perfect' number plate fot twitching Unst twice in two days ?!

Christmas has come very early (or very late) on Unst this year !