Saturday 1 October 2011

West Mainland day

 
 Some of yesterday's Pinkies (71 in two flocks)

The day was spent between home and Birsay. A day that was supposed to have rain all day was still and overcast with almost no rain. Time at the beginning and the end of the day was spent patrolling the Sycamores and other vegetation around the house which produced Redwings again, after the 19 or so yesterday and Goldcrest was added to the "in the garden" list securely with good views eventually, there may well be as many as five present. Bramblings showed up at the end of the day, like the Chaffinches they had little interest in the feeding station and spent their short time with us feeding on aphids in the Sycamores. Also at the end of the day two unidentified warblers, one of which may have been a Garden Warbler and the other might have been Thursday's (or another) Barred Warbler but both birds were uncooperative.

The lunchtime beach at The Links held plenty of waders, I'll be going back tomorrow to count them properly but 70 or so Ringed Plovers, 10 Dunlin, 3 Barwits plus Turnstones, Redshanks and Curlews. The main point of interest at The Links though were the thrips on the beach, see pix below.

 Thrips

 The black line in front of the girls is all thrips, and it's deep, half a finger tip to the joint

These are on a pool turning it black

 The 20p coin gives a sense of scale here.

There must have been billions of thrips on the beach.

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