Tuesday 5 June 2012

Home at last

I had to work away for a week, which was ok, especially as there were few interesting birds, however, good to get home.

Friends arrived from South on the Friday evening so the weekend was spent hunting for good things and seeing the sights.

 Er, TC, that might not be the best place to go seawatching

Maybe that's not so great either

Yesnaby produced a nice Mealy Redpoll on Saturday, as well as a good selection of Arctic Skuas. At Birsay we found that as I suspected the previous week the Arctic Terns had decided to leave. Maybe they'll try elsewhere.

We clambered around on rocks and went rock pooling, just have to mind where you step.

Oystercatcher clutch

Oystercatchers sneak off and then you have to keep your eyes skinned. 

On Sunday we went looking for summer plumaged Great Northerns at Evie and bumped into a summer plumaged White-billed instead, very nice. (Pic later.)

There was a Green Sand on The Shunan and a Cuckoo up behind the house. Later in the day we went to Mar Wick.




The weekend disappeared rather sharply.

After work yesterday, a lazy start this morning involved trout fishing with youngest offspring, we caught three, let two go (under-sized), and she had baked trout for lunch.

I wandered down to The Shunan to fill in pot holes mid afternoon and bumped straight into a Red-necked Phalarope, another female, it hadn't been there earlier. Also there a Blackwit, a Ringed Plover, a pair of Common Sands and five or so Dunlin. One pair of Coot have young and there are two broods of Greylags, a three and a five. Work again tomorrow...

2 comments:

Nick Carter said...

Loving the updates mate, keep em coming. Big changes up Withens Clough these days, old water building now in process of being renovated into a huge house (I think), wind turbine also. YW are doing some over running work on the res and all car parking is banned, not just in the old car park but also on all surrounding roads, made it difficult for me to get to my BBS square in the limited time I have available. Not looking good for getting it done now.

Alastair said...

Good stuff up here today but no time to look, however, I am planning an outing early tomorrow, fingers crossed as there was a Paddy on North Ron and quite a bit of other stuff on the other islands.