Autumnal day

 

 

Very autumn feel to the day today. Yesterday's Robins were still present in the garden but the Dunnocks had gone missing, only one Song Thrush, Blackbird numbers are still low. Down on The Shunan there are still blackwits to be found with a 13 which headed off south and then a 19 and the same or another 19 later on. Over at Howaback there was another flock of nine too. The Snipe count reached a new record of 47.

My assistant was impatient to get to the coast

Skaill still held the Snow Geese that I found midweek. I'm not very excited about them but maybe I should be, I just think its a tad early for three ads and two juvs to have crossed from the west. However, I've not seen this species at this site before, they don't have any anklets and there was a westerly airstream at the beginning of the week. A find tick maybe. Not much else at Skaill or Palace, lots of pipits on the Links and the Links bech both mepits and rockits.

 No getting across to The Brough this morn, not without a boat

An afternoon in the car, due to the rain, at Howaback produced the afore-mentioned godwits, a site tick plus, huge numbers of Starlings and Common Gulls. Searching the Golden Plover did not produce the goods unfortunately.

Howaback produced a flock of easterly moving Pink-feet (99) late afternoon and when I was poking about in the garden last thing, trying to find something edible for the stirfry, another 275 went over the house. Autumn is here.