Breeding waders, gully visitors

The Shunan is a noisy and aggressive place these days with many waders sitting on posts and then attacking anything that approaches their realm. it seems to have been a pretty good season with Redshank doing especially well but Oystercatcher, Lapwing and Curlew following not far behind. We have to drive up the track with caution in recent days as the car is often escorted by a running Curlew chick leading us over the (now not so many, thanks Carl) potholes.

Silage cut, looking up to home

The other main interest, it being silage cutting time, are the gulls. The Scandinavian race of Lesser Black-backed Gull, intermedius, is rare here with just three records of four birds since 2006. I'm used to seeing these in September and October in Yorkshire so I'm cautious of June individuals here but some of these look like contenders...

 Right hand lying down bird

 Standing, left centre

Lying birds, left centre

...and a pale graellsii taken at the same time, in the same place, at the same angle. 

Pale graellsii

Other things of late include regular Arctic and great Skua visits, a peregrine hanging about on Sunday, and a nasty dip yesterday when a smart male crossbill fed on the rose that climbs on the front of the house.

North Ron weekend

Excellent weekend on NRon. Nothing startling, but still great birding. Actually dipped on the best bird due to an uncharacteristic lack of enthusiasm for night operations (nightish at this time of year). Invited to head out to listen for a rumoured crake I elected to go to bed instead, being somewhat knackered. Of course it turned out to be good and a calling Spot Crake was logged.

Nice things were a Blue-headed Wagtail, two Curlew Sands, a Swift. However, the total over the two days of 380 Sanderling, nearly all in summer plumage, was exceptional for me.

Cracking place North Ron, excellent observatory, brilliant island, and often cracking birds, although they tend to take a bit of looking for.

Skuas

Well it wasn't a total nil result, although compared to RW on Westray for the last two weeks it was in comparison (750 LtSs). Trouble is its a busy time of year with work, and so I'm a bit knackered to be honest, and the folk festival is on. So an attempt Wednesday evening did produce three very nice, close enough Poms from Yesnaby. But the next evening I could ony spare 45 mins or so as we had tickets for the New Rope String Band  in the new Birsay Community Hall. Of course 10 mins after I left five Lon-tails came through, and later on there were a good many more. However, when did I ever laugh so much? Oh yea, the last time I saw NRSB - here's a taster (and do give it a few mins, you don't get the whole joke on YouTube as you don't have the context of the earlier stunts but it's still pretty funny) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU2-SLYoOfY

Other birds... well there was a whitethroat singing in the garden for about a minute this afternoon, only the second one since we've been here. Various things have chicks, including teal down on The Shunan. Male Hen Harrier around the garden about three times today with a ring-tail as well once. There continue to be Common Redpolll at the niger feeder daily, one of which is ringed, it would be nice to retrap that... The rooks have had branchers for a fortnight now.

SE blowing this evening and will continue the next two days, looks like I might be too late on NRon, where I'm booked in for next weekend, however, quite often the rares turn up a bit later but anyway it'll be two days of full on birding, something I've not done for a while.

Pix to follow, while you're waiting why not try a spot of musical tennis....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC38nJsW7bQ

Otter

Driving from a seawatch at Yesnaby to The Loons yesterday evening, and a good job I was going slow by Loch of Skaill as a big dog otter was in the road. He slipped down the bank and I stopped. Thinking that was it and he would have nipped off unseen below the bank I was about to drive off when up he popped up a few feet away in the loch and gave me a look. He dived, then up again, staring at me and me at him. We played this game for a few minutes before he got bored and dived away.

Here's the proof, not the most wonderful pic though...

The redpoll was joined by two more, slightly better photos of them. The rump and back certainly have a white ground colour even if they are heavily streaked, islandica I reckon.

 Siskin and Common Redpoll

Various pictures of the three

Also yesterday an Arctic tern on The Shunan, a House Martin through the garden. The seawatch at Yesnaby produced about 40 Bonxies going south, uncountable as most were above my head and I was staring out looking for distant Poms.

Finches

Lots of finches in the garden today including an interesting redpoll, identifications in the comments below appreciated. My own view is Common, probably Icelandic, but I'm very happy to stand corrected. Also 4 Siskin, a Goldfinch, two Linnet, a Twite and the usual Greenfinches. The Tree Sparrow was also present.

 Redpoll and Siskin

Redpoll (top right) and Siskins

Siskins

On The Shunan there were six gadwall and three Dunlin. The Shunan has been a bit of a duck Meccca of late with nearly all of the commoner species present at some time in the last week including at least two pairs of pintail and two pairs of Shoveler. The male Red-breasted Merganser contiunes to pop across from Loch of Bosquoy every now and then.

On the duck theme here are some Eider at Birsay I snapped this week.

And some other recent photos...

Orcas!

After the disappointment of dipping the Black Kite on Wednesday, it probably flew over the meeting I was in, I needed a bit of a perk. Mid afternoon yesterday a text came in Orcas were heading for Orphir from Stromness. Too much work though, so I couldn't go then. A couple of hours later and another text, the pod were in Clestrain Sound heading for Mainland. The nerve broke and I headed off for Brig o'Waithe. Although the house is 7 or 8 clicks from the sea it is possible to see a chunk of the sound from our garden but I wanted a better view than that. The sound is well viewable from the Orphir road and after a couple of clicks or so I pulled in to a gateway. A quick scan with the bins and under the bow of the pilot boat there were fins. Quick with the scope and good views of a pod of eight or nine. Certainly one male, maybe two, the pod of eight or nine included females with young. Excellent views for a while then the pod headed north and looked to be off Pt of Ness, Stromness. I decided to move and hope for closer views but when I got there no sign and no sign out in Hoy Sound either. Magic moments though. Reckon I would have been able to get them as a garden tick as well...

What no pix? Well they were a mile away.

Also in the sound both Common and Arctic Terns, mostly heading south, perhaps these have come north around Hoy and up through Hoy Sound.

It's come to this...

Following the incident with my back three weeks ago I decided to invest in a Scopac or similar. Now although one of my birding mates has one of these (and sorry NC) but this is a bit of kit that has always seemed a bit dude-ish to me. However, given the circumstances and the choices there seemed no option - permanently damage my back or not be able to take my scope with me. A quick trawl including BirdForum seemed to indicate that the MulePack might be the more robust bit of kit (the Viking offering being indicated as duff from kick-off). Some reviewers reported a vulnerability with the ScoPac design. Only trouble was MulePack is only available from two sources, Focalpoint and CleySpy. I will never buy another thing from Focalpoint as they let me down really badly a few years back and unfortunately CleySpy appeared to have an islands delivery excess payment of £10.95; I usually won't have anything to do with this as it's often a complete scam, you pay it and the gear is delivered by Royal Mail. However, the good folk at CleySpy waived the charge, and what is more got the gear to me for today, it was ordered Thursday p.m. that's an ace service. What's more, first impressions are really good. I've a good range of rucksacks from a treking and hill walking past so know a thing or two about the design of these things. The Mule Pack doesn't have any obvious design issues and looks well made. After  a bit of a struggle putting the tripod on it, might have helped if I'd read the instructions, it appears to work really well, comfy to wear and the tripod functions fine with it on. The Velbon carbon fibre tripod does help, in that it is very light and my "walking" scope is the Zeiss 65 which isn't too weighty, probably the whole setup is a pricey but pretty good combination.

Wearing the MulePack, with hound enjoying bone

Birding, oh yea, Swallow yesterday and today, the first two. First was at the bottom of the track as I returned from work and the second was a fly by from the car by the Harray Potter. Goldfinch in the garden yesterday too, also seen today. New for The Shunan was a Red-breasted Merganser, a drake today. In recent days Black-tailed Godwits have reached seven, there has been a pair of Pintail and the Snipe have finally got going and are "singing" and displaying daily. Bonxies are now becoming rather common place. 

A walk up on the moor today found a pair of Red Grouse and Merlin as well as further increases in Skylarks, Meadow Pipits and waders. A trip to Stenness found Buzzard, male Hen Harrier and SEO.

Oystercatchers

One of the pair of the Oystercatchers at work is ringed.

It would be good to be able to read the ring, but attempts at photographing it were a bit of a failure, wrong angle. Here is their frequent early morning perch.

Migrants

A walk on the moor on Thursday showed the impact of the previous few days of fine weather with plenty of Skylarks and Meadow Pipits on territory, Lapwing and Curlew displaying and on territory and plenty of pairs of Greylags carving out seasonal homes. A Redwing and a small flock of Fieldfare were also present, on their way north presumably. The evening finally produced the rather overdue Black-tailed Godwit on The Shunan as well as a roost of 31 Lesser Black-backed Gulls.

Jackdaw tracking in the evening, whilst not conclusive, pretty much demonstrated that the population breeding on the Mar Wick cliffs roost in our rookery. Jackdaws being surprisingly difficult to track as they fly low and fast in the dusk heading for the roost.

On Friday the feeders were visited very briefly by two male Siskins (there have been a few elsewhere in recent days). The Black-tailed Godwit continued to be present on The Shunan. The highlight though was AL's excellent talk at the joint RSPB/OFC meeting in the evening, all about the Orkney geese. AL's neck collar scheme (orange, three capital letters in black) have shown that the "feral" Orkney population, whilst generally staying within a few klicks of home, have within their number a few travellers. A few seem to be migrating to Norfolk annually, one of which overshot last year and ended up staying on Faroe for the breeding season (it's a young, non-breeder), currently back in Norfolk. Greylag Goose is a controversial bird on Orkney as the winter and "feral" populations have both exploded over the last 30 years. As 6 Greylags = one sheep in pasture consumption.. They also damage barley and neeps crops.

An early start yesterday found me on The Brough of Birsay, on a rising tide to make it more interesting. A rather rapid tour of the island found the usual suspects and it was only when I was approaching the causeway to leave that first a Bonxie cruised by and then a Wheatear appeared on the beach. In Palace more migrants were to be found in the shape of a Robin and a Chaffinch. Seawatching from Pt of Buckquoy produced several hundred Greylags heading north, three more Bonxies and 2 Puffins. A Carrion Crow came south with  Hoodies from the Brough and the same or another came south at Buckquoy. Subsequently there were two on The Links, all of these were given reasonable scrutiny and none showed grey feathers.

An unusual visitor just outside the front view from the kitchen window.

South-easterly gale overnight with rain, now calm and damp, should really find me in the field...

Mooching about

We've woken up to snow most mornings and today it snowed for a good bit during the morning, nothing sticking mind. Mostly over the last fortnight its been generally sunny but very cold. A Wheatear was seen at Mar Wick today.When I was there on Monday, looking for Jackdaws it was still and sunny and wheatearless.

Amongst the 61 Jackdaws at Mar Wick I found one likely monedula (Nordic Jackdaw), it was a tad distant though. I'm pretty sure that these are the Jackdaws that make up the majority of our roost, all I need to do is track them over the eight miles or so as they fly in...

I managed to relocate the Loch of Banks black crow and get some photos. When I saw it previously I was pretty sure it showed some grey feathers but these, rather distant, photos don't show any.

 Crow hunting

 Mmmm, looks like a Carrion Crow

...but I'm unconvinced, I think that the breast seems to have a brownish hue..., I need to get closer

This was just down the road, it might be the most subtle grey hybrid yet? (Looks like a black feather in the mantle.)

This is getting a bit obsessive. Neither of these birds is currently identified. Both would appear to be paired and on territory, with the near black/carrion probably nesting with a grey hybrid. More observations required.

This was rather nice at The Links on Sunday

Bosquoy held two summer plumage Red-th Divers on Tuesday

Plenty of Song Thrush about and the occasional Fieldfare moving through. A feature of Monday and Tuesday were the numbers of Skylarks that appeared to be moving through, 10 or 11 each day. Yesterday evening there were at least 800 Pink-feet in the field behind the house and on Monday evening at Mar Wick there had been 200 Pinks in the fields and an additional 110 flew north.

Botanical signs of spring

However, at the moment it's just as likely to be like this...

... and the rooks have to put up with this...