Another squally day and so we decided to head north and
cover some of the lesser watched spots out that way. We did not encounter another birder all day.
Staring at Olaberry, we walked down hill towards the old
church where we saw the Hornemann’s Arctic Redpoll last year but some Twite, Meadow
Pipits and a White Wagtail were our scant rewards although the former did show
rather well as they fed on some Meadowsweet seedheads. A female Merlin did her best to catch a Snipe.
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| Twite |
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| Shetland Starlings |
The skies were ever changing with blue patches quickly
replaced by black clouds, a flurry of rain and then an ever ephemeral rainbow.
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| Ollaberry views |
Up the road to North Collafirth (trying to ignore that fact
that there were now two American sparrows on Foula) where we checked out the
sheltered wooded garden at Green Brae. Another Robin was a surprise but two
Willow Warblers and some chunky arboreal Wrens were the only other passerines.
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| View from Green Brae |
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| Robin |
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| Raven |
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| Sheltering Rock Doves |
Further stops gave us the chance to scan through a heap of
Golden Plovers at Isbister, a Mealy Redpoll at Voe and over 100 Eider in Ronas
Voe before lunch was taken in a very civil style on a bench at Hillswick with
pie in hand and an Otter fishing offshore.
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| The Iris bed Hell of Isbister |
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| Sheltering from a squall at Isbister in the bin shed of the house with the fusilage of the Potez 840-02 in their front garden... |
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| Sorry but the rams of this particular are quite literally dog ugly- again more help needed! |
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| Mealy Redpoll at Voe |
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| Ronas Voe looking stunning - a brief blue spell but still howling! |
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| Pies at Hillswick |
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| The Hillswick view minus Otter |
We dared the winds of Eshaness in a vain hope that we would
at long last find a Neararctic tottering around on the short turf. As it was it
was so windy that you could barely stand up so some traditional epic sea and
cliff scapes were taken and the usual walk across the rolling greens was forsaken
for searching through a small flock of Golden Plover from the car.
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| Eshaness |
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| Eshaness |
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| Golden Plover |
The amazing garden at Orbister was completely devoid of any
birdlife and the shout of ‘Pheasant!’ over the radio when a male crashed out of
cover sounded, if I was to be honest, a little desperate...
Our Icky was still up at Lunna so we made that our final
stop of the day but it was just far too windy and I amused myself by watching
plunge-diving Kittiwakes in the bay opposite the Kirk.
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| The Lunna nettles where we found the warbler... |
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| A double rainbow at Busta |
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| Whooper Swan on our very own Orwick Water |
The warbler actually had the last laugh on us that day as by
the time we called it a night it had been quite correctly re-identified as a Melodious
Warbler with the short primary projection being visible in the new photos but
at least in our defence it did still have a nice wing panel, the appearance of
pale edged greater coverts and bluish legs!
There are always opportunities to learn...
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| The Eye of Mordor was burning bright to the east long after dark... |
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