Waking up this morning, a pale-morph juvenile Booted Eagle was seen over Nanquidno in Cornwall yesterday.
Booted Eagle (Jim Waterman)
After the dark morphs were observed over Cape Cornwall on May 20th and Nanquidno on September 2nd, neither bird was seen again. Dan Pointon and I were prepared to leave Shetland if the bird was spotted again, so we continued with our day. During the morning, we saw a Cattle Egret along with two Purple Sandpipers, both of which showed well.
News broke late in the morning that the Botted Eagle had been relocated by some local birders. It had been seen intermittently around Land's End, with the last sighting recorded at 1:45 PM. We had booked our flights for a late afternoon departure back to the mainland, and we decided we had to give it a try, even though there had been no sightings after 1:45 PM.
We returned to our accommodation to pack, and just as we were leaving, we received news that a White-Winged Scoter had been spotted north of Lerwick. We quickly drove north and soon found the bird, which was showing well with a group of Eiders.
After enjoying good views of the bird, we headed to the airport and left after another great week of birding on Shetland!