In the dark

A trip out last night produced three Otters, a Spotted Crake, a Grasshopper Warbler and a Corn Crake.

This evening whilst on the phone to a local birder a Cuckoo flew into the tree in the front garden, a waif and stray blown in by the storm.

Very record shot - Cuckoo

Brilliant birding (and a pitfall)

Just an excellent day yesterday, starting off at 5 doing my farm survey. It's an organic farm that borders the moor so there's lots of interest. Best bird was a redpoll sp, in the same place as last time. Lots of Twite on the moorland edge with signs of breeding.

Then at home There was plenty of interest around Loch of Bosquoy and The Shunan trying to count breeding  birds. I got home and a Marsh Harrier flew through and a Tree Sparrow came to the feeders again.

A fun afternoon was spent at Birsay, rock pooling and eating nice cake at the cafe as well as counting Arctic Terns.

 

 Here's a pitfall bird, under the feeders

 Just a Starling, leucistic juvenile

Then in the evening after eating tea and whilst finishing my beer and intermittently peering at The Shunan with my scope a very smart Red-necked Phalarope was found feeding next to the Dunlin. Ellen and I leapt in the car and got reasonable views before it rather rapidly vapourised. One minute it was in the scope, Ellen looked and saw it again, I went back to the scope and it had gone...

A self-found tick for me, so especially nice.

Eynhallow today

Wood Sand'

A very nice, if distant Wood Sandpiper was on The Shunan late this afternoon, very pleased with that.

I went to try and twitch the Red-necked Phalarope at the Loch of Banks this evening and dipped but AL had tried twice earlier and failed. MR had, of course, got a cracking photo

Dip, tick

Roared over to Birsay after work for the pod of Orcas, which had gone. They had long rounded the north end of Rousay; one day.

However, the next text message was more hopeful, White-billed Diver off the Broch of Gurness. I went over after tea, but a 15 minute drive. After a considerable search eventually got fine, but unrecordable views from the Broch of Gurness car park. The bird was in full summer plumage. It was actually a tick as I never counted the one I saw very badly from Filey beach and a very likely autumn seawatch candidate was just not quite tickable.

Tree Sparrow again in the garden twice today. First juvenile Starlingsat home today and in Eynhallow Sound four small broods of Eider.

Crow trouble

For the last few weeks we've been finding increasing numbers of broken birds' eggs on the track by The Shunan. At first I thought it was adult waders disposing of hatched eggs but as it went on I began to think that was an unlikely explanation. Today there were about five or six new eggs on the track. The culprits are nesting in the nearby hawthorn hedge.

 

Hooded Crows

Returning from working Sooth it takes me a while to get back into understanding what has happened to various broods of duck and waders. The Shelduck pair on The Shunan are down to five from eight, I wonder if the ongoing territorial battles with a second pair; and sometimes a third pair as well, might have anything to do with these losses. The Curlew, Oysercatcher and Redshank pairs around The Shunan appear to have young. There are increasing numbers of failed Oysetercatchers and Lapwings gathering there now though.

I've rather neglected the Arctic Terns at Birsay this year so rather than racing off East in the hope of Orcas I went to Skipi Geo. A sadly quiet place greeted me, at first I thought they had all left but I eventually found two sitting birds. Hopefully the others have gone off to breed somewhere else. The small inland colony that was relatively successful last year seems to have established elsewhere, and although terns are coming in to feed I'm pretty certain they're not breeding at Bosquoy.

A Siskin flew in briefly on Friday at lunchtime, a rather uncommon visitor this year. On Saturday a Willow Warbler sang a line or two of its enigmatic song in the garden before heading off north and a few minutes later I found a Chiffchaff singing just beyond the garden. First records from the garden for the year of these two species. A warbler trio was required so having located a Sedge Warbler down by The Shunan I waited patiently with the telescope trained on the spot and sure enough the scratchy songster obliged with a song flight. Today a Redpoll sp flew over at lunch time and later a Tree Sparrow was again under the feeders. A little later I got onto a Tree Sparrow flying south out of the garden and it headed for a possible nest site, further investigation is required. I'm not sure if Tree Sparrow has ever nested in Orkney previously, so I'll need to make a bit of an effort to track them down.

I set the moth trap last night and caught... no moths. It was a bit cold. At the moment there is very little time at night when it is particularly dark, that won't help.

The new bit of meadow we began to try and establish last year is beginning to look quite good. Some pictures of Red Campion and Cow Parsley too.

Chicks and Ringed Plovers and other stuff

Shelduck with 8 chicks on The Shunan on Friday and Curlew with four there yesterday. Two Ringed Plovers today but not much else to report locally.

Reports of Black Kites and Red-backed Shrikes sent me skuttling over to the East mainland this afternoon for a brief sortie. To no avail, but I had too little time really. I did find the largest flock of Ringed Plover I've ever seen though, 406 with another 14 nearby. I am guessing these are Greenland birds delayed by the strong south-westerly winds we've been having. Interestingly lots of them are feeding on stubble fields.

Someone found my notebook and took it south but I have their email address so hopefully it will be returned shortly...

Really enjoyed Southern Tenant Folk Union and the Halton Quartet over at The Hope on Thursday, thanks for the ticket JB (I still owe you for the raffle). Emily Smith was excellent at Harray last night, just the set was far too short.

Happy birthday Bob

The Kame of Corrigall

This morning I went up the Kame of Corrigall, the moorland hill just behind our house. It was a beautiful morning. Not too many birds to report there but interesting enough.

 This is the peat road which cuts through the moor, the way folk used to go up to their peat cutting spots. It must have taken a fair effort to drive this through as it's cut quite deep into the moor in places.

 View from the top, Old Nisthouse is amongst the houses and buildings with the trees to the mid-right

There are good numbers of Oystercatchers breeding on the edge of the moor and the pasture

 Hares were playing in the fields as I got back to home

A Tree Sparrow reappeared in the garden at late lunch again, makes me believe they are having a go at breeding somewhere not too far away.

The forecast wind and rain appeared at lunchtime and it's blowing a hoolie now, sunny again at the moment, hopefully the greenhouse will survive.

Hard to believe that The Bob will be seventy on Tuesday, small tribute in the side panel.

Lost notebook

Annoyingly I seem to have lost my notebook last weekend. Fortunately most of the data will be in a spreadsheet, on this blog or in BirdTrack but I'm sure there'll be the odd thing that I've not transfered elsewhere. My last chance was the Birsay cafe but it wasn't there. EBay to the rescue and I've managed to locate a source of my favourite kind, I used to buy them in the newsagents in Filey. They're rather cheaper on eBay. A6 spiral bound artists sketch books. The spiral binding means I can keep a pen handy and the covers on these are pretty resilient.

Wader numbers are now starting to build up with a flock of 12 Dunlin arriving on Thursday to increase numbers on The Shunan to 18. There was a Black-tailed Godwit yesterday and today the expected Ringed Plovers with a flock of 6. The male Hen Harrier again floated through the garden.

Rather surprisingly a Tree Sparrow appeared in the garden again on Wednesday. I popped home for lunch following a training course in Kirkwall and one was feeding with House Sparrows under the feeders.

The weather wasn't great today. I mooched around at Birsay for a bit and spent too long looking for a Bonaparte's Gull amongst all the Black-headed Gulls feeding along the shore. There were a couple of hundred gulls, mostly Black-headed but a few Common and Herring as well. I think a Bony' would be quite hard to pick out in the circumstances. I spent a long time scrutinising a small first summer Bl-hG. The paddling method of feeding, rather storm-petrel like, is interesting I've taken a bit of video, I'll have to upload it later.

Test your skills - age and name these gulls

After a while I went to Skaill where there was still a Whooper Swan, a Goldeneye and a drake Scaup. I think the Whooper Swan has decided to stay, it was seen on the sea the other day apparently, perhaps not well enough to make the journey north.

Well enjoyed The Burns Unit on Jools last night. The Folk Festival begins on Thursday and I have tickets for a couple of dos. Also we have Euan Robertson, Gary Innes and Martin O'Neill playing at work which should be a bit of a treat. As well as being a demon accordian player Gary is also captain of Scotland's shinty team... hopefully he'll be one piece when he plays for us... Some of this stuff is now in the side panel (or will be soon).

Starlings

Starlings were feeding young in the boat house near Skiba Geo on Tuesday. Arctic Terns were on the rocks and some were certainly looking quite settled.

At home the Hawfinch was not seen today. There's a video of it in the side panel.

Birds to order - Hawfinch

When PH came round the other week to tick the Tree Sparrows for his Big Orkney Year List he asked me if I might be able to provide a Hawfinch next. Always happy to oblige, with apologies for the two week delivery time but Hawfinches were on back order...

Arctic Terns

I spent the morning and lunch time watching Arctic Terns. First of all three appeared on The Shunan and there were at least 17 at Loch of Bosquoy. Then later we went to Skipi Geo and they were finally back there. There seemed to be about 100. Let's hope there are some sand eels for them to eat this year.