Tough conditions

We had seen the weather forecast all week and we knew that today and tomorrow were going to be tough and probably a write off and we were not wrong.

Although dry to start with, the gale force winds really were not very good for birding. we knew that it would be too strong for our usual Houlland path so hoped the SW of the island would be more sheltered and headed for Lund and Westing.

Well we were wrong with thinking it would be clamer but carried on with the plan.

The thistle bed at Lund has rare written all over it. Although some of the thistles seemed to have been cut and where not as thick, the nettle beds were great.  Last year we had a long staying little bunting and a siberian accentor turned up there later in the autumn. No such luck today with the wind keeping the birds very low. We did manage to find a blackcap, whinchat, song thrush and 4 redwing. 3 female red breasted merganser were in the sheltered bay.

The wind wasn't helping us still at Westing and had probably increased too. Along the beach to the small croft at the end, the sparse docks produced single willow and yellow browed warblers but anything in the croft garden was keeping very low. We walked up across the fields to track down a mystery wader we could see in the distance, turned out to be a ruff, before getting to the 'Westing willows'. Despite the low willow bushes being completely blown out, they did hold a redstart, redwing and a blackbird. The irisbeds in the burn produced nothing but we did flush a lesser whitethroat found under the van!

Clutching at straws we headed down too Uyeasound but again it was too windy to checking bushes so we added a few wildfowl to our trip list and headed back north to Burrafirth. The yellow browed warbler had moved on but we did find a reed warbler.
The news of a red breasted flycatcher new in at Skaw prompted us into a little twitch. On arrival, Dave Cooper had just been watching the bird before it flicked over a wall and despite searching the croft several times, we couldn't find it. Dipped again!
There were still a few bits around the croft including 2 robin, 2 blackcap, reed warbler, wheatear and a male siskin.

The weather was now really set in so photo editing, eating biscuits and drinking coffee was the plan for the rest of the day; we didn't venture out again!