First impressions of Shetland are 1) its absolutely huge! 2) there is not much cover 3) you have to completly change the way you look for birds to get rewarded.
Day 1
Paul and I travelled up to Aberdeen by car leaving at 5.30am, we were there in plenty of time for the ferry and managed a little bit of seawatching from the comfort of our indoor chairs. We got some sleep on the floor of the ferry, but it wasnt the best nights sleep!
1 Little Gull
4 Sooty Shearwater
3 Manx Shearwater
4 Arctic Skua
Black Guilimot- lots
8+ Harbour Porpoise
2 Minke Whale ( a new species for me, one of which showed very well not far from the boat at all!)
Day 2
First day on Shetland, although it mainly consisted of getting to Fetlar. We managed to get to the island by lunch time so did a bit of a recci in the afternoon, seeing what was within walking distance from our croft.
3 Chiffchaff
1 Blackcap
8 Twite
Bonxie (lots)
Raven
Shetland Wren
Shetland Starling
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| Typical shetland habitat, iris beds |
Day 3
First full days birding on Fetlar. We got out and did our 'patch' circuit which took in some of the well known birding spots including Northdale/Southdale Burn, down to The Manse, along the road to Houbie, Feal Burn and back along the road via the upand to the croft. A decent walk of around 5 miles, it doesnt sound far but working wet iris beds takes its toll on you!
3 Yellow Browed Warbler
5 Chiffchaff
1 Willow Warbler
1 Blackcap
15 Twite
17 Faroe /Snipe
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| The Manse, the largest area of cover on the island, home to many past rarities |
Day 4
This was the day of the (one and only) fall, we were out pretty much dawn till dusk so made the most of it. The usual circuit was done followed by a trip to Everland with Andy, one of the local birders who showed us a few decent spots. We had our first difficult acro in the iris beds not long after we left the croft (it took us about 2 hrs to get 200m from the croft!). The acro was just flying between dense cover, never showing itself at all, I managed a couple of rubbish flight shots but it was left as an unidentified wabler, but most probably Marsh. This identification was partially made as we found a Marsh Warbler later on in the morning at Feal Burn. The day was exciting as there were birds everywhere, each small patch of nettles and thistles contained migrants of some sort. If coverage was more like that of Fair Isle I'm sure something else would have been found, but thats part of the beauty of birding an island like Fetlar, you have it almost to yourself!
12 YBW
10 Chiffchaff
1 Marsh Warbler
1 Unidentified acro, probable Marsh
5 Goldcrest
1 Robin (the ony one of the whole trip!)
8 Blckcap
1 Garden Warbler
4 Pied Flycatcher
1 Ring Ouzel
11 Snipe
5 Fieldfare
1 Grey Wagtail
1 Whinchat
1 Wheatear
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| the unidentified acro |
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| again acro sp |
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| Marsh warbler |
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| Marsh warbler |
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| Marsh warbler |
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| Marsh warbler |
Day 5
YBW 5
2 Blackcap
1 Garden Warbler
1 Willow Warbler
9 Chiffchaff
4 Goldcrest
1 Wheatear
6 Redwing
1 Merlin
Day 6
The day of our best find a Blyths Reed Warbler. It was quite skulky and very difficult to see well, but thanks to the research of the Marsh Warbler Paul and I were genned up to ID these now! As soon as we saw it in the open (about 1 second) we both knew it was a Blyths! (Thanks Martin Garner for your excellent books!). I managed a few shots, yet again an acro in long grass, weeds, nettles and iris is never easy to see, let along photograph! It was a self found tick for both Paul and I.
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| Blyths reed warbler |
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| Blyths reed warbler |
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| Blyths reed warbler |
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| Blyths reed warbler |
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| it may not look like it, but the cover here was great!! |
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| View from living room |
1 Blyths Reed Warbler
11 YBW
7 Chiffchaff
2 Goldcrest
1 Lesser Whitethroat
2 Blackcap
1 Redstart
2 Wheatear
Day7 25/9
1 Blyths Reed Warbler
2 YBW
9 Chiffchaff
3 Blackcap
1 Lesserthroat
2 Goldcrest
1 Redstart
6 Fieldfare
Day8 26/9
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| This burn showed promise |
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| Paul, thinking big for dinner! |
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| We managed a little bit of habitat management education. Thanks to Malce, who gave us a 'management of upland mire for phalerope conservation' in a nutshell |
3 YBW
1 Willow Warbler
4 Chiffchaff
1 Lesserthroat
1 Goldcrest
RB Merganser
1 Minke Whale
Day 9 27/9
4 YBW
5 Chiffchaff
2 Blackcap
1 Goldcrest
7 Redwing
2 Minke Whale
Day 10 28/9
3 YBW
1 SEO
5 Tree Sparrow
42 Snipe
1 Wheatear
3 Ruff
15 Risso's Dolphin
Day 11 29/9
5 YBW
3 Chiffchaff
1 Goldcrest
43 Snipe
3 Jack Snipe
2 Redwing
2 Merlin
1 Peregrine
50 Snow Bunting
1 Wheatear
Day12 30/9
Today we walked the Eastern cliffs of the island due to the constant westerly wind it seemed as though this may hold some shelter. It was a good walk with some amazing scenary and some good migration of Pinkies and a attractive flurry of Snow Buntings. (for some reason the pictures of this day are not on my computer now...odd!)
485 Pinks
150 Snow Buntings
3 YBW
4 Wheatear
1 SEO
1 Merlin
1 Woodcock
3 Siskin
2 Chiffchaff
50 Skylark
3 Ruff
1 Water Rail
2 RT Diver
1 Redwing
Day 13 1/10
159 Snipe
2 Jack Snipe
2 Chiffchaff
2 Blackcap
1 Willow Warbler
1 YBW
1 Wheatear
1 Tufted Duck
Day 14 2/10
7 YBW
3 Chiffchaff
1 Barred Warbler
1 Tree Pipit
1 Whinchat
1 Wheatear
190 Pinkies
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| Tree pipit |
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| Tree pipit |
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| A pink footed goose with white primaries. Amazingly I saw this bird (or similar) at Buckenham nt long after I returned. It has also been seen on the north norfolk coast and further north too |
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| This Skylark was flushed by paul, at first he expected it to be a redpoll as the call was not like skylark at all! We saw it several times and it covered a lot of ground, we could not turm it into anything else dispite that very odd call, another 2 images below |
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| The most jumpy barred warbler ever! (its the bird left of the 3 starlings!) |
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| Houbie bay |
Day 15 3/10
A full day on Mainland (once we got there) Unfortunately the Pechora pipit and Arctic Warbler that had been present for over a week left the night before we got there. Quite annoyingly after a week of strong westerlies the evening before we left was very calm and very clear, so if I'm honest I'm not surprised they did a bunk, it was very annoying though!! Why did we not go to see the pipit/warbler earlier if they were ticks? Well it took us 4.5 hours to get to the pipit location so it would have been a 9 hour round trip before we did any birding, or anything else, we wouldnt have done that from Norfolk so we didnt do it on Shetland! This goes with my earlier point ... Shetland is massive! Paul and I did not overly enjoy our day on Mainland, there was too much cover to know where to look and so many places that could potentially hold birds, not to mention a lot of birders too; given the fact that all the birds had gone they were not all particularly happy either! It made us realise that 'our' island was a far easier place to bird even if it was not amazingly productive. I guess there is always next year... maybe!?
1 Little Gull
1 Red Grouse
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| A good example of a Shetland starling. This form has a darker head than mainland form when in juv plumage, brown rather than grey and quite distinctive |
Excellent stuff, Ben! Great read....
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