Sanderlings.

Despite the winds being light and variable overnight, with high pressure stretching from here to Scandinavia, struggled to find any migrants - Barnacle Goose and 9 Sanderling at Scatness and a Chiffchaff in the Garden. Common terns are now on territory at Scatness, being harassed by the Arctic Skuas, a few Eiders in front of the house along with a summer plumaged Great Northern Diver.


Arctic Skua.

Common Tern.

Bathing Eider.

Sanderling.

Back Home into Chaos.

Left Fair Isle at 6am on the Good Shepherd, getting into Lerwick at 10.20 - a lot smoother than yesterday's trip with close views of Seabirds on the way. Got back to Sumburgh at about 11.30, jamming straight into the White-tailed Eagle, soaring high over Fitful Head and eventually disappearing into the clouds. The 2 Black Duck were on the Loch at Scatness (patch tick) and eventually made it onto the House List in the afternoon (164), the day ended with an adult summer Franklin's Gull near Sullom Voe (found by the Assassin) loosely associating with the Black-headed Gull colony before flying off into the hills. All in all - quite a hectic 2 days !

Guillemots from the Good Shepherd.

White-tailed Eagle (honest !)

Franklin's Gull.

Having a Cow !

After enduring 3 hours on the Good Shepherd, myself, the BFG and the Whalsay Rapper got to Fair Isle to find that the Brown-headed Cowbird had disappeared from Burkle, tho' after about an hour it did return and eventually gave mega views. Even singing and displaying at times - Bird of the year so far.
Also on Fair Isle - Goldfinch, Tree Pipit and several Whimbrel.
Thanks to Liz at the Haa for putting us up for the night, and Josie from South Light for organizing things while we were on the boat.

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Brown-headed Cowbird.

Goldfinch.

Whimbrel.

Black Ducks.

A relatively nice surprise this evening was the news of 2 Black Ducks at Loch of Hillwell, tho' they had flown off into the dunes - However, thanks to Mr Bell who knew where they had landed, they were soon 'in the bag' but giving flight views only.
The strange Carrion Crow movement continues, with 10 in off the sea at Garth's Ness and 18 south over Scatness.

Black Ducks.

Yet Another Iceland Gull.

Iceland Gull in front of the House at 7.30am and 28 Whimbrel over, Wood Pigeon in the field all day and 37 Carrion Crows in off the sea at tea-time (a massive flock for Shetland !).

Iceland Gull.

Carrion Crows (part of a flock of 37 !).

Hell 'n' Dale.

A trip into Lerwick gave me about 90 minutes to spend birding, so I went to Helendale, mainly to get out of the strong wind. It was, however quite calm amongst the trees there, with singing Common Redpoll, Willow Warbler and Greenfinch sounded very spring-like. The only other birds of note were 7 Wood Pigeons in Helendale, 2 Wood Pigeons near Sandy Loch, 2 Linnets in the Garden and 9 Arctic Terns over the House.


Greenfinch.

Greenfinch.

Common Redpoll.

Common Redpoll.

Willow Warbler.

Willow Warbler.

Wood Pigeons.

Seawatch.

Two hours sea-watching off Garth's Ness produced - nothing !!! (more Skuas were seen on Spiggie than over the sea !!), other than that - 2 Iceland Gulls (now known as Turnip Gulls, for some reason - GFB) at Quendale, 2 Linnets at Toab, 2 Linnets and 2 House Martins at Spiggie, Carrion Crow at Fleck and a game of musical parking whilst looking for the Black Kite at Fladdabister.

Oh yeah, and Arsenal learnt, once again - there's no stopping the unstoppable force of Man U !! In the Final again !!!


Iceland Gull.

Bye-Bye to the London Scum.

Siskins.

A bit of a clear out of the few migrants that were about, however, a pair of Siskin in the Garden were new. Carrion Crow, Arctic Skua, Swallow and 5 Whimbrel over the House this afternoon.


Siskin.

Siskin.

Siskin.

Siskin.

April's Moth Count.

A total of 253 Moths were trapped in the Garden during April, these consisted of 212 Hebrew Characters, 28 Brindled Ochre, 6 Brown House Moth, 6 White-shouldered House Moth and 1 Angle Shades.

2 Chiffchaffs and a Willow Warbler in the Garden, and an Arctic Skua in front of the House.



Hebrew Characters.