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A veritable selection of assorted wildlife today. My final Breeding Bird Survey at Sumburgh Head was enlivened by lots of Painted Ladies, a passing Minke Whale and a Stoat, none of which are breeding birds. In the evening a visit to Moast beach at Scatness provided splendid views of a summer plumaged Curlew Sandpiper and even splendider views of an otter.
I decided today would be a good day to look at some trees. There was method behind this madness, in that I thought that any migrants that may have arrived in Shetland over the last week or so may have found some trees to hang about in instead of just buggering straight off back from whence they came.
The day was a prtial success: I located lots of trees, particularly at Scalloway, Catfirth and Kergord, which have long been known as good sites for trees. Unfortunately there was jack shit in the trees apart from a few very common birds such as Robin, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and Goldcrest. In the end I resorted to looking at the long-staying drake Lesser Scaup at Loch of Benston, which was about as unexciting as distant ducks can be.
Due to “technical difficulties” (whatever they are) I’ve not been able to do anything with this website for a couple of weeks. All now seems to be well, so if there is anybody left who is still interested I’ve added a few bits and pieces below. More to follow if I can be arsed.
I finished off the Arctic Tern counts on Mousa over the last couple of days, with a grand total of 901 inclubating birds. Which is a lot of terns.
Otherwise, all quiet really: a Whitethroat and a Common Redpoll in the garden on 3rd June, and the spanner Wood Duck had migrated to Hillwell on 4th June. A few moths in the trap, two of which are below:
Left: Shears. Right: Clouded-bordered Brindle.
A couple of decent birds today, in what I would imagine will be the spring’s limp finale: a singing Marsh Warbler whilst I was carrying out my Breeding Bird Survey at Toab this morning, and an Icterine Warbler at Sumburgh Head this afternoon which had obviously just arrived as it was one of the most hyperactive birds I have ever seen - it even attempted to land on the lighthouse at one stage. Also a Spotted Flycatcher in my garden, masses of Painted Ladies (or is that Ladys?) and a Marbled Coronet in the moth trap this morning.
Marbled Coronet.
A positive glut of moths last night: 7 Silver Ys, 2 Map-winged Swifts (one of each colour form) and a Lychnis.
Top left: Silver Y. Top right: Lychnis. Bottom: a couple of Map-winged Swifts.
This afternoon I started the Arctic Tern counts on Mousa. The biggest colony is at Catti Geo, towards the north end of the island, where at least 642 birds were incubating. This is well up on last year, when there were only 400 pairs on the whole island, so that’s a good start. There are literally thousands of terns currently feeding in Mousa Sound, and a lot of birds are carrying sandeels around. Maybe this year isn’t going to be such a disaster for Shetland’s seabirds as previous years. We’ll have to wait and see…
Some Mousa birds: Shag, Rock Pipit and Starling. Anybody who needed to read this caption should be ashamed of themselves.
Painted Lady on Mousa. Lots of them there today, mainly feeding on thrift on the clifftops.
… the wandering White-tailed Eagle flew over my house whilst I was there, making the house list 152. And without the aid of a chimney.
The most obvious flying creature today was Painted Lady; loads of them have suddenly made it to Shetland and I saw them wherever I went today. Migrant birds were back to their crappy form of the last week: a Whitethroat in the garden and 6 Canada Geese at Scatness was as good as it got. Don’t ask me what type of Canada Geese they were; they were asleep when I saw them, and even if they had been awake I wouldn’t have known. They were definitely brown and black and white though, if that helps.
Finally a moth in the trap last night, for the first time in a few weeks - a Dark Brocade.
As it was a nice mild evening, I decided to try a bit of bird-spotting, mainly because I’d seen next to nothing over the last few days. On my way to a pointless visit to Sumburgh Head I happened to notice the Laughing Gull sitting on the runway of Sumburgh Airport. Any bird that goes near the airport takes its life into its own hands, thanks to the rather crude methods employed by the airport to disperse any living organism that happens to exist within a couple of miles of the airport, so if the Laughing Gull is never seen again I might be able to guess why…
Laughing Gull on the verge of being asked politely by a shotgun to move off the airport.
With a distinct lack of anything else in the Sumburgh area, I decided to try Geosetter for a change. A huge total of three migrants was there, which was three more than I’d seen over the last four days: a Spotted Flycatcher, a Blackcap and a rather nice Icterine Warbler. Maybe spring has come back?
Spring 2009 in Shetland has been one of the better ones in recent years, but unfortunately it seems to have lurched to a premature and anti-climactic end. The only migrant of note over the last four days has been a Turtle Dove flying behind the house on the 26th.
Mousa has occupied a lot of time again recently, where I’ve been trying to work out the skua population. It looks at the moment as though there are 6 pairs of Arctics and 41 pairs of Bonxies on the island. The next task is to see how many pairs of Arctic Terns are there, which should be a laugh as there appears to be rather a lot this year!
Rather magnificently, the Laughing Gull decided to visit Virkie this morning, thus becoming the 151st bird on my house list (and fifth current BB rarity, following Pechora Pipit, Killdeer, King Eider and Black Duck). Otherwise, a first-summer Iceland Gull at Exnaboe was all I saw today - migrants are now virtually non-existent.
keep looking »