Friday 6 May 2011

Whimbrel in the garden

Yesterday as I lingered by The Shunan on the way home in the evening a familiar call was heard and after a minute or two a Whimbrel landed on the mud in front of me. Very surprisingly this is only the third time I have recorded this species in the home tetrad and only the second time on The Shunan. last year's bird hid under the wall and didn't call so it remained unrecorded from the garden. This individual was much more obliging. I drove up to the house, scanned with the scope but it was out of sight behind the wall but then it called, called again and took flight. It flew straight towards me, fairly low over the front garden and disappeared to the north. There were five summer plumage Dunlin as well.

Today, I dropped in at home for lunch on the way back to work from a meeting in Kirkwall and the Tree Sparrows were back, well there were two. They were still under the feeders when I returned at six. I'm tempted to purchase a nest box. There were nine Dunlin on The Shunan this evening.

It's warm tonight so I'll put the moth trap out.

This weekend is green birding weekend. I think tomorrow is the official day but I've jobs to do so I'll be listing by foot and by bike on Sunday. If I get to the coast I would think that 70 might be possible, we shall see.

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