A day of 2 halves

Bit of a strange day to be honest but one that you learn to expect on Shetland. Despite the calmer winds and brighter conditions this morning, everywhere seemed pretty quiet. Our morning walk around the patch only produced a chiffchaff still at Houlland and another with a yellow browed warbler near the school. I did manage to get a few pics of the YBW and hope for better as the trip goes on.

Our first jaunt around the Haroldswick was tough going in the strong wind. 11 grey herons (groups of 7 & 4) over, chiffchaff, robin and yellow browed warbler was all we could muster.

We decided to go and have a look around Skaw then have some lunch. The croft was quiet and to be honest, we were a bit fed up. I suggested we have a look down on Lamba Ness and if nothing else, do some seawatching.

Instead of seawatching we decided to check the sheltered cliffs which turned out to be a good decision. First birds seen were a couple of robins, not much but they were migrants. Then a male redstart appeared from nowhere. A good decision to check the cliffs and were were getting interested. Our check around the end of the cliffs also produced wheatear, blackbird, mealy redpoll and a nice little group of dunlin. With birds about, we decided to head back to Skaw and do the cliffs north of the croft. Nick and I had checked them last year so we thought it was worth a go.
On the drive back up Lamba Ness we added kestrel, whinchat and a song thrush to the list.

As we got to the top of the cliffs there was a group of large gulls bathing in a pool of water. As they flushed I said to Nick that it would be good if there was a glaucous gull with them. There wasn't but Nick looked down into the geo and said 'there is a glauc down here' A rather beefy 1st winter was showing well.

As at Lamba Ness there seemed to be birds about. Another couple of goldcrests, 2 wheatear, 2 chiffchaff before Nick called 'dolphins offshore' and we were treated to a show from at least 10 Risso's dolphins feeding in the bay. Although a little too far for photography, they showed really well through bins. There was a nice mix of adults and youngsters with one of the adults being so pale and scarred that you could actually see it underwater! They were impressive with their tall swept back dorsal fins, I can only imagine how impressive an orca would look.

Nick was a little further up the cliff edge when he called 'little bunting'. Bugger, I was messing about with the camera further back but managed to get great views as it hopped around the grassy edges of the cliff calling regularly. It eventually came up onto the clifftop and after a bit of commando crawling through the grass I managed to get a reasonable shot.

Back at the Skaw croft, a new lesser whitethroat was in plus a chiffchaff and the same male blackcap that has been there for a coupe of days

After a slow start it turned out to be a good day

Our little patch

Although there are lots of great sites on Unst, Nick and I have our own good little patch on our doorstep at the end of our road at Houlland.

Parking on the road before the final house, the walk up has a nice crop field that is currently being grazed by sheep. Nothing in there this morning apart from a couple of skylark.

The garden itself is a nice mix of mature sycamore, fushia bushes and rosa but despite being small is can be very hard to see anything in it. The Blyth's reed warbler last year was a nightmare to see! The garden was quiet this morning holding single chiffchaff and yellow browed warbler.

Dropping down the side of the fields to the loch is a small ditch that although has only held a few meadow pipits so far, it looks good for something. Small patches of meadow sweet are always worth checking before we head up another small iris filled valley that held a reed warbler this morning.

Combining this area with the nettle patches and dense gardens around our digs should keep us bus every morning

.

Several areas checked today including Baltasound, Halligarth, Norwick, Burrafirth, Northdale and Setters Hill provided us with a decent total of 8 yellow browed warblers, barred warbler (Northdale), 2 lesser whitethroat, jack snipe (Burrafirth), 3 chiffchaff and 3 blackcaps. Highlight of the day was a juv common rosefinch found by Nick at Halligarth that managed to disappear before I get there despite being only 10m away!

Nice otter tracks at Norwick

Shetland is a long way!!

Well I started my journey to Unst on Friday afternoon via Newark to pick up Nick, an easy journey to Aberdeen on Saturday followed by a rather sleepless night on the ferry up to Lerwick. We eventually arrived on the Shetland mainland on Sunday morning and the birding could begin.

First birding stop of the trip was the small roadside site at Sandgarth, an oasis of willow scrub by the main road.
First birds to get us going was a small flock of redpolls containing a very pale bird but the flock was massively frustrating as they kept disappearing into the trees and out of sight. We had our 1st yellow browed warbler of the trip (one of 3 on the site), goldcrest and  couple of blackbird  - a rather quiet start, We did however catch up again with the redpoll flock and our pale bird turned out to be 2 mealy redpolls.

Once onto Unst we have a look around some of the sites to see what was about.

Brambling, 2 blackcap and garden warbler around our digs at Scraefield, yellow browed warbler at Burrafirth, 2 blackcap and garden warbler at Skaw.

Quiet but good to be out in the field

Hunstanton to Holme

Thought I'd make the most of some time off to get out birding this week before heading up to Shetland at the weekend.

I haven't walked this route in ages so I thought I'd give it a try. It has a good reputation and even I have have found some good birds here in the past - barred warbler and red backed shrike when we used to live in Hunstanton.

To be honest is was pretty quiet although there were more migrants about that at the weekend despite the wind being in the south. Highlights being

Chiffchaff - 8
Blackcap - 4
Wheatear - 1
Hobby - 1 west chasing the mixed swallow/house martin flock
Pink footed goose - 75 in/off sea over the NOA obs
Dark bellied brent goose - 4 on sea at Gore Point
Stonechat - 6

Not a great deal but better than being stuck indoors

The dark side of the Wash

A birding day took me, Simon and the Colonel across the county boundary and into the badlands of Lincolnshire to Frampton for a boys' day birding. There has been so many birds about again this year and we had high hopes for a good day especially as Les hadn't bee to the reserve before.

As well as a bit of quality #bants with the team in the visitor centre there were a few birds from the windows to get us started. An adult and juv tree sparrow were showing nicely on the feeders right outside the window, adult yellow wag on the waters edge and a nice wood sand feeding on one of the close islands.

The water levels from 360 hide were nice and low but most of the small waders had moved onto the grassland near the seawall as the water levels had just been dropped there exposing a nice load of new food so we have to be content with close views of both little and great white egret along with the whooper swan that has been hanging around for the summer.

East hide was the best spot for the waders, according to Toby who was now giving us a personal guided tour while he checked the water levels and tweaked the sluices, so we headed in that direction. A small group of dunlin were feeding by the path on the way up to to the hide but we need the the height of the seawall later to see the area properly. From the hide, another small wader flock contained several ruff and 2 smart juv curlew sands. A small group of brents, the 1st I've seen of the winter, dropped in.

From the seawall it was much easier to see the birds both on the grassland and the saltmarsh. A nice little group of ca25 yellow wags were feeding at the bottom of the seawall although they were very flighty, probably because of the hunting kestrel and sparrowhawk we saw later in the morning. 
The great thing about viewing the grassland was the extra height to look down into the vegetation where many of the small waders were feeding. 80 dunlin in a couple of groups along the bank contained 8 little stint, 20 ruff and a nice little party of 4 spotted redshanks. Wigeon numbers were already building up with several hundred feeding close to the back. Before heading off for lunch, a group of other birders pointed out a distant peregrine perched out in the saltmarsh.

Following a rather filling lunch of sausage, chips and curry sauce, we ended the trip at the Roads Farm reservoir looking for the red necked grebe. Amongst the wigeon and little grebes the bird was actually quite hard to locate especially as it was diving loads to start with. Once it had managed to swallow a tricky fish it settled down and showed well. Although they are a regular species off the Norfolk coast in winter it was good to get some nice  to get such good views. We didn't manage to add any more wood sands to the list (there had been 3) but we did have a calling green sand close by that we didn't see.

All in all it was a good day. Lots of birds, plenty of bants and good company.

A day too late...

Sadly that always seems to be the case with me that I am always busy when it comes to decent seawatching off Titchwell and this week was no different. 

Although I did manage to sneak down to the beach for a short while (seeing a couple of Manx and a flock of 11 bonxie) most of the day was spent sorting out the last of my things in the office so missed out on all the action once again. A calling yellow browed warbler outside the office was decent compensation though.

Although the winds had dropped by the evening I still decided to get out early and see what was moving. Despite it being still very dull on the walk down to the beach the 2 juv little stints were still present on the fresh marsh with the dunlin flock but light wasn't really good enough to look for much else.
The wind really wasn't going to help bring any birds in close now it had gone the west and died but there were still a few bits about. The short eared owl was still about hunting around Thornham Point along with a couple of marsh harriers.

There wasn't much movement on the sea with only 9 bonxie and 2 arctic skuas in the 90mins I spent watching although the wildfowl passage was good. Without the strong north wind, many of the duck flocks were staying far out and the haze meant that identifying them impossible. On jizz, most of the flocks looked like teal and wigeon. I must admit I was a bit fed up with missing out again so headed off. 

My brief watch did record
8 pintail
173 teal
31 wigeon
6 RB merganser
3 shelduck
1 razorbill
3 sandwich tern.

On the walk back down the path, the juv curlew sand that had been found by Alan Davies was showing well right under the path with the dunlin flock.

On the way home I decided to have a little walk around the Choseley barns arrea, Although the area around the barns is much quieter these days for birds, the field margins in the whole area are excellent. The farm have been planting wild-bird mixes along many of the field margins and they are really doing the trick. In the 'dip' south of the barns with millett content within the mix id proving very popular with the small finches. 20 linnet, 20 goldfinch, 10 yellowhammer and a rather smart corn bunting were feeding by the road. The margins run between the barns south to the village and I'm sure will only get better as the winter weather arrives. Fingers crossed that is something good turns up in the flock that people behave...

Flying visit

Popped up to Cley yesterday for the first time in ages to catch up with Simon in the CleySpy shop and to pick up my new bins (more about this in the coming weeks). Having been all over the place in the morning there wasn’t really time to go out onto the reserve but the birding from the shop was pretty good all the same. The panoramic view over the reserve despite being distant gave some good views.

The small wader flock had included several curlew sands and it was just about possible to pick out one of the juvs feeding with a ruff on the back of the closest lagoon. It was good to see a lot of dunlin about as it seems to have been a quiet period for them recently at this end of the coast. Everything got stirred up when a young harrier did a fly past and then the hobbies arrived. Having a big panoramic view meant you could follow both hobbies at they took turns chasing the dunlin flock; both birds taking in turns doing stoops onto the flock from high up. After 10 unsuccessful minutes they have up and disappeared.

While we were checking out some of the bins, both Simon and I called a hobby coming over the carpark and flying straight towards the CleySpy shop and going over the roof. The large size and brown plumage meant it wasn’t a hobby but something more interesting. We rushed outside expecting to see the bird heading inland over the fields but were rather surprised to see it sat on the roof staring back at us!! The initial shock wore off as it was soon apparent that the bird had escaped from somewhere as it was sporting a full set of leather jessies and bells.

Overall the bird was brown with dark brown markings on the breast, upper belly and thighs pointing towards one of the parents being saker but presumably it is a hybrid. 

Whatever it is, it was impressive to see at such close quarters and attracted much attention for the short time it was present.