2-bXbills

First seawatch of the autumn today as the wind was at least in the right quarter for once. Then over to The Brough and watched some more surrounded by breeding Puffins which was nice.

Nipped in to Stromness for nine, went to the wrong, but likely place for the 2bxbills and saw them feeding high in the sycamore as soon as I got out of the car. However, after a brief view and then sending out texts to alert the local grapevine no further sign despite an hour tramping around Stromness. Some excellent pix by TW and MR on Orkbird.

More waders

230 Curlew at Loch of Bosquoy and this evening 20 Dunlin, a Knot, three Sanderling and a Whimbrel on the Links Beach at Palace.

Two broods of tufted on Bosquoy today and a brood on Parra Shun, seen fromj the garden, five recently hatched.

Also this evening 1000 or so Swallows in the roost at The Loons.

Wader movements

Waders are starting to move through now with Lapwing building up, more than 250 today, similar numbers of Oystercatchers too. Best though were the 16 Blackwits that dropped in yesterday evening. Five of these remainded this morning and mid morning they were joined by six Whimbrel which flew in high from the north. Annoyingly I missed a small Calidris which defied detection until I looked back from the house yesterday evening by which time both fog and dark were rolling in. Curlew and Oystercatcher still have young and are calling and agitated everytime I take the dog down the track.

Thursday there was a Willow Warbler in the garden, the first warbler in the garden this year. None were located yesterday but one more juv was on the bird feeders this morning, contemplating a change of diet perhaps.

Oh, shit!

Yesterday Gary Woodburn got a phone call and whizzed off and connected with Fea's (http://beadnell-birding.blogspot.co.uk/), same job here except I didn't bother to go and look. Ok I'm slightly further away from the sea, would have taken me at least 20 minutes and probably 30 by the time I'd tramped out to the best spot on The Brough, it was spit clear here and windy, calm and foggy in Northumberland, but maybe I should have given it a go....

Have just got back from hols, will post the Arran story shortly.

Decorating...

Too much house stuff and looking after ponies, let alone work, has meant little time for posting, although I have been going birding, though mostly around home. Work pretty much ceased a week ago, but the decorating then required attention, oh and I watched some telly, well I couldn't actually get to Glastonbury and beeb coverage was pretty good. Have managed to listen to a lot of radio, some excellent beeb drama and the mastertapes series has kept me entertained whilst weilding the paint brush. Haven't bothered to go and look at the Rosey, well there's another problem as the car is currently undergoing some major health care.

Breeding birds are interesting, waders seem to have done pretty well, Black-headed Gulls also, but Common Gulls didn't look to be so good although two juvs appeared on The Shunan today. Quackers have been a bit disappointing, Shelducks have 4 well grown chicks now and the mallard are ok but at least around home Shoveler, Teal and Wigeon don't seem to have done much. In the last few days the first Tufted broods have begun to emerge.

A trip to Evie on Thursday produced a stonking sum plum Gt Northern close insure and the Artctic terns seem to be doing ok on Eyenhallow, with several hundred buzzing around and obvious signs of nesting. Eider don't seem to have done too well though with just 6 broods and plenty of ducklingless females flocked up and loafing.

Will get the pix together sooner or later.....

Breeding waders, gully visitors

The Shunan is a noisy and aggressive place these days with many waders sitting on posts and then attacking anything that approaches their realm. it seems to have been a pretty good season with Redshank doing especially well but Oystercatcher, Lapwing and Curlew following not far behind. We have to drive up the track with caution in recent days as the car is often escorted by a running Curlew chick leading us over the (now not so many, thanks Carl) potholes.

Silage cut, looking up to home

The other main interest, it being silage cutting time, are the gulls. The Scandinavian race of Lesser Black-backed Gull, intermedius, is rare here with just three records of four birds since 2006. I'm used to seeing these in September and October in Yorkshire so I'm cautious of June individuals here but some of these look like contenders...

 Right hand lying down bird

 Standing, left centre

Lying birds, left centre

...and a pale graellsii taken at the same time, in the same place, at the same angle. 

Pale graellsii

Other things of late include regular Arctic and great Skua visits, a peregrine hanging about on Sunday, and a nasty dip yesterday when a smart male crossbill fed on the rose that climbs on the front of the house.

North Ron weekend

Excellent weekend on NRon. Nothing startling, but still great birding. Actually dipped on the best bird due to an uncharacteristic lack of enthusiasm for night operations (nightish at this time of year). Invited to head out to listen for a rumoured crake I elected to go to bed instead, being somewhat knackered. Of course it turned out to be good and a calling Spot Crake was logged.

Nice things were a Blue-headed Wagtail, two Curlew Sands, a Swift. However, the total over the two days of 380 Sanderling, nearly all in summer plumage, was exceptional for me.

Cracking place North Ron, excellent observatory, brilliant island, and often cracking birds, although they tend to take a bit of looking for.

Skuas

Well it wasn't a total nil result, although compared to RW on Westray for the last two weeks it was in comparison (750 LtSs). Trouble is its a busy time of year with work, and so I'm a bit knackered to be honest, and the folk festival is on. So an attempt Wednesday evening did produce three very nice, close enough Poms from Yesnaby. But the next evening I could ony spare 45 mins or so as we had tickets for the New Rope String Band  in the new Birsay Community Hall. Of course 10 mins after I left five Lon-tails came through, and later on there were a good many more. However, when did I ever laugh so much? Oh yea, the last time I saw NRSB - here's a taster (and do give it a few mins, you don't get the whole joke on YouTube as you don't have the context of the earlier stunts but it's still pretty funny) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU2-SLYoOfY

Other birds... well there was a whitethroat singing in the garden for about a minute this afternoon, only the second one since we've been here. Various things have chicks, including teal down on The Shunan. Male Hen Harrier around the garden about three times today with a ring-tail as well once. There continue to be Common Redpolll at the niger feeder daily, one of which is ringed, it would be nice to retrap that... The rooks have had branchers for a fortnight now.

SE blowing this evening and will continue the next two days, looks like I might be too late on NRon, where I'm booked in for next weekend, however, quite often the rares turn up a bit later but anyway it'll be two days of full on birding, something I've not done for a while.

Pix to follow, while you're waiting why not try a spot of musical tennis....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC38nJsW7bQ

Otter

Driving from a seawatch at Yesnaby to The Loons yesterday evening, and a good job I was going slow by Loch of Skaill as a big dog otter was in the road. He slipped down the bank and I stopped. Thinking that was it and he would have nipped off unseen below the bank I was about to drive off when up he popped up a few feet away in the loch and gave me a look. He dived, then up again, staring at me and me at him. We played this game for a few minutes before he got bored and dived away.

Here's the proof, not the most wonderful pic though...

The redpoll was joined by two more, slightly better photos of them. The rump and back certainly have a white ground colour even if they are heavily streaked, islandica I reckon.

 Siskin and Common Redpoll

Various pictures of the three

Also yesterday an Arctic tern on The Shunan, a House Martin through the garden. The seawatch at Yesnaby produced about 40 Bonxies going south, uncountable as most were above my head and I was staring out looking for distant Poms.

Finches

Lots of finches in the garden today including an interesting redpoll, identifications in the comments below appreciated. My own view is Common, probably Icelandic, but I'm very happy to stand corrected. Also 4 Siskin, a Goldfinch, two Linnet, a Twite and the usual Greenfinches. The Tree Sparrow was also present.

 Redpoll and Siskin

Redpoll (top right) and Siskins

Siskins

On The Shunan there were six gadwall and three Dunlin. The Shunan has been a bit of a duck Meccca of late with nearly all of the commoner species present at some time in the last week including at least two pairs of pintail and two pairs of Shoveler. The male Red-breasted Merganser contiunes to pop across from Loch of Bosquoy every now and then.

On the duck theme here are some Eider at Birsay I snapped this week.

And some other recent photos...

Orcas!

After the disappointment of dipping the Black Kite on Wednesday, it probably flew over the meeting I was in, I needed a bit of a perk. Mid afternoon yesterday a text came in Orcas were heading for Orphir from Stromness. Too much work though, so I couldn't go then. A couple of hours later and another text, the pod were in Clestrain Sound heading for Mainland. The nerve broke and I headed off for Brig o'Waithe. Although the house is 7 or 8 clicks from the sea it is possible to see a chunk of the sound from our garden but I wanted a better view than that. The sound is well viewable from the Orphir road and after a couple of clicks or so I pulled in to a gateway. A quick scan with the bins and under the bow of the pilot boat there were fins. Quick with the scope and good views of a pod of eight or nine. Certainly one male, maybe two, the pod of eight or nine included females with young. Excellent views for a while then the pod headed north and looked to be off Pt of Ness, Stromness. I decided to move and hope for closer views but when I got there no sign and no sign out in Hoy Sound either. Magic moments though. Reckon I would have been able to get them as a garden tick as well...

What no pix? Well they were a mile away.

Also in the sound both Common and Arctic Terns, mostly heading south, perhaps these have come north around Hoy and up through Hoy Sound.

It's come to this...

Following the incident with my back three weeks ago I decided to invest in a Scopac or similar. Now although one of my birding mates has one of these (and sorry NC) but this is a bit of kit that has always seemed a bit dude-ish to me. However, given the circumstances and the choices there seemed no option - permanently damage my back or not be able to take my scope with me. A quick trawl including BirdForum seemed to indicate that the MulePack might be the more robust bit of kit (the Viking offering being indicated as duff from kick-off). Some reviewers reported a vulnerability with the ScoPac design. Only trouble was MulePack is only available from two sources, Focalpoint and CleySpy. I will never buy another thing from Focalpoint as they let me down really badly a few years back and unfortunately CleySpy appeared to have an islands delivery excess payment of £10.95; I usually won't have anything to do with this as it's often a complete scam, you pay it and the gear is delivered by Royal Mail. However, the good folk at CleySpy waived the charge, and what is more got the gear to me for today, it was ordered Thursday p.m. that's an ace service. What's more, first impressions are really good. I've a good range of rucksacks from a treking and hill walking past so know a thing or two about the design of these things. The Mule Pack doesn't have any obvious design issues and looks well made. After  a bit of a struggle putting the tripod on it, might have helped if I'd read the instructions, it appears to work really well, comfy to wear and the tripod functions fine with it on. The Velbon carbon fibre tripod does help, in that it is very light and my "walking" scope is the Zeiss 65 which isn't too weighty, probably the whole setup is a pricey but pretty good combination.

Wearing the MulePack, with hound enjoying bone

Birding, oh yea, Swallow yesterday and today, the first two. First was at the bottom of the track as I returned from work and the second was a fly by from the car by the Harray Potter. Goldfinch in the garden yesterday too, also seen today. New for The Shunan was a Red-breasted Merganser, a drake today. In recent days Black-tailed Godwits have reached seven, there has been a pair of Pintail and the Snipe have finally got going and are "singing" and displaying daily. Bonxies are now becoming rather common place. 

A walk up on the moor today found a pair of Red Grouse and Merlin as well as further increases in Skylarks, Meadow Pipits and waders. A trip to Stenness found Buzzard, male Hen Harrier and SEO.