Two coats again.

Winter is official now as I am habitually wearing two coats. 

Yesterday I went to the Brough car park for a brief walk and a short seawatch with the hope of white-winged gulls and/or Little Auks, neither obliged*. The hound enjoyed the trot up towards the Whale Bone and I didn't enjoy the hail blowing in on the fresh northerly.

(*I did take a few photos of the mass of gulls off the car park, I'd thought I'd been pretty thorough looking through these, apparently not as thorough as I thought, as there in the photos is a 1cy Glaucous Gull.) (Or maybe not, could this be a hybrid? More pix added below.)

Hybrid Herring x Glaucous Gull 1cy.

Possible hybrid Herring x Glaucous Gull, 1 cy, Pt of Buckquoy, 07/12/2022.

 

Extra pic.

I've now had a good look through the other photos, but there is no lurking Ivory Gull.

I had to go to Kirkwall today, the fish cages at Hatston were swarming with Herring Gulls but I failed to pick anything of more interest out of the bunch (there might have been a Little Gull, but it was a glimpse that was not repeated) There has been a small influx of Little Gulls here recently but apart from that glimpse none have crossed my path. The PDC and Scapa were equally disappointing, other than, as I was driving away, there was a Carrion Crow, or very dark hybrid, but a vehicle was close behind me, so tricky to stop.

Barwit and Turnstone, Scapa.

Meanwhile the many Redwings and Fieldfares seen the other day up on the in-bye, just below the hill behind the house, the Kame of Corrigall, have descended to the fields of the patch.

Always good to have Fieldfares around the place.

Unfortunately, before most arrived in these fields a single Fieldfare was present which was clearly unwell, I suspect bird flu. Blackbird numbers continue to be above the usual with obvious migrants amongst the other thrushes.

The Rough-legged Buzzard I found has been edging closer to the patch, seen just over the hill.

Louise came for a walk, via the Grey Phalarope. Not expecting to be much excited by the wee manic beast she was suitably impressed at its mad rate of feeding and activity. Whilst there a sub-adult male Hen Harrier came a-hunting, interesting tactic, in across the wet meadows then around the edge of the bay and out across the Choin, it flushed 230+ Snipe, most impressive. Sunset at the Choin was suitably scenic.

The Choin, Marwick.

Using flash gun on the Olympus EM5 has much vexed me. However, I have got it sussed now I think, thanks to Robin Wong, https://robinwong.blogspot.com/2015/08/insect-macro-photography.html

I'd found via trial and error that flash doesn't work when the camera is set to fire on silent or shock free, only on the standard single shutter release. The wee flash gun that comes with the camera, the FL-LM3, is a decent piece of kit, but fixed to the camera it's not great for fill in with macro. However, Robin suggests that it will act as the command unit and fire a slave flash. I tried this with the Neewer TT560 that I have had no success with, far to ungainly on the camera, and was about to eBay. It works. The Newer came with a handy diffuser. So hold the Neewer at an angle, with diffuser, with left hand; set Neewer to S1 (slave setting); set OM5 to single ordinary shot and flash to Fill-in; hold OM5 with macro lens and FL-EM3 attached in right hand and focus on subject; take picture; both flash guns fire! No wires, no hassle. Scroll through the whole blog post, there are photos showing how Robin does this and all the info on camera settings. My efforts in the dark, below. I need to try in daylight now using the flash as fill-in.

Porcellio spinicornis on the house wall.

Trichocera annulata (most likely) caught in a web on outside of window.