Shetland - Continued!

 The wind is still blowing a gale, but Shetland is the windiest part of the UK, just don't remember it being this bad last time.

Another days saw us up the north west of the mainland a visit to Hillswick, where there were plenty of Red-breasted Merganser, performing reasonably close:

As well as Red-throated Divers:

Shame it wasn't sunny to bring out the colours, never mind! There's some great scenery up there too:

Eshaness.

We had a lunch stop at Heylor, where there were plenty of Mergansers;

Common and Arctic Terns

and Ringed Plover, Turnstone, All the Gulls, Guillemot, Black Guillemot, Skua and even the odd Puffin on the water.

Not far from Sandwick where we were staying, we came across Curlew, with some youngsters 😀

Next day we checked on 'our' Phalaropes again, but sadly they were not visible or had moved elsewhere. So we did some more exploring and found:

A pair of Whoopers with Cygnets at Clumlie Loch,

along with an Arctic Skua

and Snipe.

Whooper cygnets were a first for us.

Down at Grutness on the way toSumburgh Head we stopped at the pool..

Mallard with a single Duckling,

Arctic Tern,

Oystercatcher,

Arctic Terns,

Common Gull having a bath,

and a Dunlin.

I'll leave Sumburgh Head for another post, it will be a Puffin fest!

Shetland - Red Necked Phalarope!

 Apart from the Puffins the diminutive Red-necked Phalarope was a bird we hoped to see, and the possibly the best chance to see it, was to go up to RSPB Fetlar. Now this is a double ferry hop from where we were staying, so it would take a least a couple of hours to get there. So we planned a long day out for later in the week, but after yesterdays long  sleepless day, we decided to stay local down south mainland for our first full day and do some exploring.

We headed south and cut across to head to the west coast, we had only been driving up the single track road for a couple of minutes when we saw a car pulled over by a Lochan with a rather large lens sticking out pointing at the Lochan. So we pulled up behind and saw no less than three Red-necked Phalaropes on the water:

Making more Phalaropes!

So we decided our trip to Fetlar was definitely off!

Now for a geography lesson. This is a Tombolo

at St Ninians on the west side of the Mainland

Gorgeous spot, but again the wind was ferocious when we got out of the car, definitely not conducive to walking far!

Next day we went exploring north west, this was at Hamnavoe Harbour:

Another visit to "our" phalaropes!

Dunlin,

Red-throated Diver,

 and Common Gull were some other phot opportunities on our travels so far.

I think I'll leave it there for now. I will do another post but it wont be for a week or so....

A bit of Sea Watching at Fife Ness

 Last week we went up to Fife Ness and spent some time in the Fife Bird Club hide near Crail. Usually we have the place to ourselves but on this occasion we shared the hide with 4 experienced sea watchers from the Bird Club. I'm not sure sea watching though is our thing, our sea bird identification skills are poor and although there were large numbers of birds on passage, I couldn't identify them moving that fast and that far out.

Not so for our hide partners, they were calling out all manner of birds as we sat and took it all in. Having said that with their direction we did manage to get eyes on a Sabines Gull and a Sooty Shearwater. Both of which were lifers for us. Other birds passing through, there were huge numbers of Kittiwakes;

The Kittiwakes were a bit closer, so I took a record shot! Others that flew by were; Little Gull, Common Scoter, Red-throated Diver and Manx Shearwater. The experts also saw Arctic and Great Skua but we didn't see those.

Apart from the passage birds there of course plenty of Gulls, Cormorant, Shag and Gannets about.

After leaving the hide we explored the nearby rocks;
Redshank & Turnstone,

Dunlin,

Oystercatcher & Curlew,

Shag,

Oystercatchers, Curlew and a Bar-tailed Godwit

and another Curlew:

It was a great afternoon out!

Musselburgh

 We made another visit to Musselburgh last week as we were visiting our daughter in Leith. We started at Fisherrow Harbour: Redshank

and Dunlin were seen,

plus the odd Oystercatcher. We then moved on to our first ever visit to the Esk Mouth in search of various Scoter, but speaking to others there, they had drifted away into the Forth, so that was a shame. There were quite a few Goldeneye on the Esk and plenty of Curlew on the shore:

Also load of Corvids and Gulls, but we didn't stay long as the wind was spiteful and it was very cold, even though I had three layers on.

We carried on to Levenhall Links and the Lagoons, where there were Wigeon, Oystercatcher, Bar-tailed Godwit, Redshank, lawing and Curlew aplenty!

Curlew,

Oystercatcher,

Bar-tailed Godwit,

Oystercatchers,

Wigeon

and Lapwing.

We also had a good sighting of a Kestrel on the hunt, a single Shoveler put in an appearance, as well as plenty of Teal. But the big highlight for us was a very brief appearance of a Short-eared Owl. This is our mission for 2022, to see the three main species of Owl (Bar, Short-eared and Tawny) as we hadn't until then seen an owl for over two years! Not for want of trying I might add.

We left just before dusk, frozen solid. Never been more grateful for heated seats in the car.