Both Fulmar and Bonxie made garden airspace today. The Fulmar was a bit creepy maybe. We were eating lunch in the sun outside and all of a sudden a Fulmar swung in low over the rookery, the rooks weren't there it being the middle of the day and now the young are fledged they are off over the fields, our garden is strangely quiet. Now other than those sitting distantly on the far side of Loch Harray I reckon to have only seen Fulmar twice before from the garden (Harray being the only landlocked parish in Orkney) so a low flying one was of interest, however it didn't just make one pass but about twenty and each time it seemed to be lower and closer to us, no we weren't eating either fish or bits of plastic, Fulmars' preferred grub. Anyway, in the end it vanished.
The Oystercatchers on The Shunan had been quiet all day but just after lunch they started on getting up fairly regularly. Each time they get up, pleep a lot and then disperse before gradually circling in back to The Shunan roost (about 100 at the moment). The cause is nearly always a threat of some sort, Grey Heron yesterday was exceptional (not common here at he moment) because over the last week it's been skuas that have caused this most of the time. Arctic Skuas have been present regularly but this time it was a Bonxie and it eventually headed directly over the house and garden at just above roof height. A couple of hours later another, or the same, did exactly the same thing, on precisely the same track.
Yesterday evening's mystery Phyllos did not reappear today.
On the moth front I was rather careless emptying and checking the trap, partly because the girls were "helping" (wanting to handle each moth and let it go). So I'm pretty sure I released a Plain Golden Y without a photo or checking it properly, a vagrant here, oops. New today was Lesser/Common Rustic. However, venturing out this evening with the net I seem to have caught a different carpet, currently in the cooler so I can examine it properly.
No comments:
Post a Comment