Its that time again when the annual pilgrimage to the Shetlands begins, and this was my fifteenth consecutive year visiting these wonderful slands. We had a great week yesterday but missed out on a first for Britain, least bittern, whilst being stuck on Unst, which was an absolute killer, as the bird was taken into care before we could get there. Oh well, they"ll be another!!!!
Anyway, we had a good week and saw over 120 species of birds during our stay, which was good as there were hardly any common migrants about, and birding from dawn till dusk was hard going, and the weather was shocking on most days. Below are a few of the birds we managed to see:
Olive-Backed Pipit-Brae
Pechora Pipit-Hillswick
Lanceolated Warbler-Wester Quarff
White's Thrush-Lerwick
Dusky Warbler-Quendale
Magpie at Sandness is only the second record for Shetland, with the previous record on Fair Isle in 1987.
Glaucous gull-Lerwick Harbour
Great Grey Shrike (Homeyer's)??? -Hillswick-Mainland
Ortolan Bunting-Unst
Glosy Ibis-Unst
Yellow Browed warbler
Wood Warbler
Eastern Stonechat-Saxicola maurus-Quendale
Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll-Toab-Mainland
Red Grouse-Bressay
