6th October 2017: Day 11:
It was, after some early rain, the calmest day of
the week although we rarely saw the sunshine. An early boot about Hoswick for
the Booted Warbler reported the evening before did not produce the goods so we
headed north as planned to Isbister where a Red-flanked Bluetail had been lurking. We were
first there and it took some searching but I was delighted when the obscured
wing of a bird under bush became a flashing blue tail as it darted past me. Our
crew had the bird to ourselves for quite some time
and it was very obliging when it to wanted too. Refinding this one brought back
memories of the one that I found at Berry Head in Devon in 2005... Can it
really be that long ago?
 |
| Red-flanked Bluetail |
 |
| Come on! Look at me! |
Rock Doves posed for us too and many Snipe erupted
from the irises without us even going near them!
 |
| Rock Doves |
 |
| Rock Doves |
From here we checked out various gardens in
Collafirth, Ollabury, Orbister and Ronas Voe but it was generally quiet with a
few Blackcaps, Phylloscs, Mealy
Redpolls, two late Spot Flys, a Reed Warbler and the odd Redstart, Siskin, Chaffinch and
Brambling.
 |
| Ollabury |
 |
| The Starling Blinged Sheep of Orbister |
 |
| The seductive sheep of Voe |
Eshaness was as stunning as ever with panoramic
vistas across land and sea with the majesty of Foula looming up on the horizon.
The Golden Plover flock as usual, did not contain the AmGoPlo but there were
five Ruff with them and a nice young male Goldeneye and four Tufted Ducks on
the Loch.
 |
| Eshaness |
News of an Arctic Redpoll back at Ollabury had Bob
reconsidering an odd bird that he saw with sparrows there earlier. He only saw
it briefly but it felt too big for a small finch. Ten minutes later we were
back by the old church but it took over half an hour in failing light for a
giant snowball of a Redpoll to appear. The white rump glowed and extended up
into the mantle and it had wonderfully warm buff cheeks. It was very quickly
apparent that we were looking at a Hornemann's Arctic. It was pretty confiding
and shuffled around in the grassy fence edges occasionally showing off those
amazing shaggy white trousers and flashing the white rump through long crossed
wings.
 |
| Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll |
 |
| The light was so low and the ISO so high that this one truly is 'Essence of Redpoll in flight' |
 |
| These last two crackers by Bob Vaughan |
With the light fading we left it to continue
feeding and made our way back south to the Brae chippy once again...
No comments:
Post a Comment