Shetland 2024

This years pilgrimage to Shetland for Andy Smith, Dave Gray and myself started on the 4th of October; we were going for 10 days, arriving back home on the15th. Our drive up to Aberdeen was interupted by a  stop off at Templeton Wood, Dundee for Red Squirrel, a species I had not seen in the UK  - and thanks to Dave who spotted one not that from the car park, Tick, sadly no images.

Our ferry crossing aboard the Hjaltland was a decent crossing, lumpy at times but all in all  good........ I've had worse. Our first port of call was our usual breakfast at the Fjara cafe in Lerwick.A walk after breki at the side of the Voe produced Purple Sandpiper, Rock Pipit, snipe and Redshank  and a few more of the commoner birds on Shetland. Just across the road at Clickimin loch was very showy Barred Warbler, best veiws I've had of one this species.

Barred Warbler

Barred Warbler at Clickimin Loch Lerwick

I'm going to try not to bore you with all the list of birds we saw but try to just concentrate with the more interesting ones. Not from Clickimin is the Burn of Sound where again a quite showy Little Bunting had taken up residence, once again a brilliant view of the bird.

The 60 degree North sign on the main A970 which runs the length of the mainland, probably one of the most photographed signs on Shetland apart from the vllage of Twatt sign. We then headed to our chalet Sheepfold our accommadation at Bigton.

Sheepfold, our accommodation for our 10 day stay.

We always go out trying to find our own birds but will always go and see birds that other birders have found. We only went off the main island once - to Yell - where a good report had been made of a possible sighting of a Common Nighthawk (an American species); sadly, however, when the bird was re-found asleep in the corner of a field, it turned out to be a Nightjar - still an excellent bird for Shetland!

Turtle Dove 

Turtle Dove which has taken up residence in a garden in Sandwick

Turnstone on Ireland village beach

This is the tombola at St Ninians Island

One of the Starlings we fed every day

Snipe on our walk down Sea Road in Lerwick

Sanderling

Ringed Plover - lots of these on he beaches and in fields

Redwing - a massive influx of Redwing came in the middle of our first week

Redshank on the same wall as the Snipe on Sea Road

Red Grouse - a bird mostly seen on the west of the mainland - this image was taken after a walk up the Burn of Bunklet

Purple Sandpiper

Purple Sandpipers, again down Sea Road in Lerwick - a reliable site for these birds

Lesser Whitethroat at Hoswick - probable (?) halimodendri 

Lapland Bunting

Lapland Bunting which was feeding by the roadside at Scousburgh - and whilst watching this bird, we had a heavy hailstorm which came down so hard that the hailstones hurt!!

Pallas's Warbler

Pallas's Warbler (record shot) at Swinning

Nightjar

Nightjar - this is the bird on Yell which got confused with Common Nighthawk

The bird was flushed from the roadside, and had only been seen in flight.

House Sparrow; Shetland, has a really good population of this species

Hooded Crow; you can see lots of this species - and this year, of all the years we have been going to Shetland we saw more Raven than ever before.

Curlew; lots seen in various fields

Cattle Egret (??or is it a Shhep Egret??) at Sandwick Kirk

Arctic Warbler at the Bridge of Fitch, Njuggal's Water; once again we had superb views of this 

normally elusive little bird

Black Guillemot  - this one was in Lerwick Harbour but the species can easily be seen in 

many of the voe's

Snow Bunting at Oswick, at he Orca Inn Hotel - and again, a very confiding bird. Also at this site was Wood Warbler, (not seen by me), Yellow-browed Warbler (also not seen by me)

 and Blackcap (which I DID see!!)

Snow Bunting, unusually took to the Sycamore trees to feed

Arctic Warbler

Little Bunting - another confiding bird at The Burn of Sound, Lerwick

Despite not seeing any new species, we still had a brilliant ten days; as well as the birds in the images above,  we also had (amongst others) Red-breasted Flycatcher at Maywick, Bluethroat at Channerwick, another confiding Barred Warbler in Hoswick, White-winged Scoter at Wadbister (which had originally been identified as a Velvet Scoter), Scaup at Loch of Spiggie along with Lesser Scaup at Loch Vatster and two Slavonian Grebe at Loch Tingwall.

This year, the weather wasn't very kind to us in as much as the winds blew Northerly for six out of the ten days, which isn't good for Shetland - but what we did see - and I was SOOOOO excited - was a magnificent showing of the Aurora Borealis! Sadly, all of the images of this wonderful spectacle are on my phone - and as you all probably know by now, I'm something of a technophobe (or dinosaur if you prefer)  I will endeavour to get some assistance over this, though,  as I would love to share them with you all.

We saw 89 species and from door to door traveled 1615 miles

As always, thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed my post.

First for Britain

Just a quick post before we head for Shetland at the end of next week. A phyllosc Warbler that had been first seen at Bempton RSPB on the 25th September  first identified as a Arctic Warbler then a Eastern-crowned Warbler , but with some excellent work was sound recorded and identified as a Pale-legged Leaf-Warbler, a first live bird for Britain. A bird picked up dead in 2016 was confirmed as a Pale-leeged Leaf-Warbler. So insead of myself, John Hague, Dave Gray going to our regular game of satuarday non-legue football, another birding mate Neil Howes picked us up for the 2.5hr drive to east coast of Yorkshire and Bempton Cliffs RSPB reserve. We knew there was going to be a lot of birders but fair play to the the RSPB wardens and volunteers who managed the site excellenly,  and also to all the birders who behaved themselves. If you were patient and stood still, eventually you would get decent views of the bird, and we all did. 

A couple of record images are bleow. 

Pale-legged Leaf Warbler

Thanks as always for stopping by, bringon Shetland

Leicestershire & Behond

 In a couple of weeks Dave, Andy and myself will be on our way to our anual pilgrimage to the Shetland Isles, so I thought I'd post a few images from a few local places around Leicestershire and beyond before we go. On Satuardays, along with our other mate John, we go to different non-league football grounds around the country, with a bit of birding before hand. Talking of John - I've just bought a 100/400 Canon lense from him, so I'm looking forward to using it up on Shetland

Avocet Frampton Marsh RSPB Lincolnshire

Glodfinch, Frampton

Black-tailed Godwit Frampton

Avocet, Frampton

Caspian Tern, Eccup Reservoir West Yorkshire

Shag, Stoney Cove Leicstershire

Graet Crested Grebe feeding a chick at Stoney Cove Leicestershire

Great Crested Grebe Stoney Cove

Great Crested Grebe chick having a stretch

Diving Great crested Grebe

Common Buzzard Stoney Cove

Yellow-legged Gull, Cropston Reservoir Leicestershire

Sparrowhawk, Cropston Reservoir

Kingfisher, Cropston Reservir

Mandarin Duck, Thorton Reservoir

Black-headed Gull Tornton Reservoir

Thanks for stopping by, and I'll post about our exploits when we return from Shetland.