More of the same

Pretty much a carbon copy of yesterday, Houlland first thing followed by Burrafirth, Norwick and the cliffs of Lamba Ness and Skaw.

The strong winds are not great for Houlland blowing hard through the garden but we did manage to add our first redwing of the trip along with the continuing robin and chiffchaff. 2 more redwing were on Baliasta village along with the male blackcap and 2 chaffinches.

Peregrine over the road on the was to Burrafirth then the yellow browed warbler still along the burn. We stopped in the small quarry near Qouys to see the male snow bunting. It was a rather showy individual

After not checking Norwick we caught up on a few of the migrants that had arrived yesterday. Nothing exciting but we ended up with 2 lesser whitethroat, 2 redstart, 2 robin, blackcap, 3 willow warbler, little bunting and whinchat. Highlight was my first long eared owl in years roosting on one of the large conifer trees in the garden at Vaylie.

The waders were nice on the beach in a bit of sunshine. After missing it on Monday, the purple sandpiper was showing well roosting on the rocks.

We did the cliffs at Lamba Ness and Skaw again and although there were not that many birds we did manage to add a couple of new species for the trip; pied flycatcher on Lamba Ness and a spotted fly at Skaw. Also between the two sites were glaucous gull, 6 grey heron, 2 lesser whitethroat, snow bunting, redstart, mealy redpoll, 5 song thrush and 4 wheatear.