Sumburgh birds

Some more photo's from last weeks Shetland trip, all these birds were seen around Sumburgh head.

Lapland Bunting

Twite

Rock Pipit

Spot fly

Arctic Skua

Velvet Scoter

Monkey amusing himself in top quarry!

Fun with Fulmars

When your not seeing or finding rare's on Shetland, theres always something to photograph.  While staying at Sumbrugh its hard to ignore the Fulmars that are constantly passing by, sometimes just feet away, as they seem to check you out as they cruise by!

Shetland goodies

Some more pictures from last weeks shetland trip.

This Red-breasted flycatcher was seen at Hestingott.

Yellow-browed warblers were all over the place.

Goldcrest's arrived on mass from midweek.

OBP - Scatness

This Olive-backed Pipit was seen at Scatness, just a stones throw away from where we were staying and favoured an overgrown garden, This was one of several on Shetland at the time.

Bluethroat Quendale 4.10.15

This stunning male Bluethroat was a Quendale last Sunday, without doubt the best I've ever seen in the UK.

Bird of the trip for me.

Flycatcher at Dunrossness 4.10.15 Just a Pied?

So back from another week on Shetland, not a classic full of Mega's week that we expected!  Looking at the weather forecast, you would have been chomping at the bit to have been on the islands, but very much enjoyable none the less, with still some cracking birds seen.

Late afternoon on our second day we found this Flycatcher in a Dunrossness garden, it showed fairly well and we all commented on the large white patch on the primary coverts.  Not too familiar with the rarer flycatchers in this plumage I began taking some shots of the bird whilst Andy tried to download images on his phone to compare.  With little or no reception we decided to head back to base obviously birding our way back to the lighthouse.

After scrutinising our photos with images on the laptop/fieldguide it seemed our flycatcher was causing some debate between us, with some pictures showing our bird to show the large white wing patch and hint of a second wing bar, though a fairly broad white edge to the tertials possibly favouring Pied?

Speaking to some very well respected local birders that evening, it seemed most were interested in seeing this bird in the morning.

Unfortunately the bird had disapeared overnight!!

Below are some images, comment if you dare....

Wader Ringing 25/9/15

Had a great session with the WWRG (wash wader ringing group) friday night, my first go at mist netting for waders through the night.

Good experience, very tiring and very exciting. We set the nets up around midnight and caught a few redshank in the early hours but it wasn't until an hour before high tide (around 4am!) that it really produced in numbers, extracting in darkness with nothing but the moonlight was a real challenge.

Redshank

Taking Bio's on Knot

Knot release

Wing measuring Dunlin 

Walking on and off the marsh was fun too! good job we put some markers out during daylight.

Ringing Totals:

Redshank 50
Knot 10
Dunlin 17