With the New Year, inevitably, comes a new bird list. The 2021 list had a slow and soggy start on the first of January, with an afternoon's trudge through the rain from Orphir village, down to Swanbister Bay, then back along the Gyre Road.
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| Swanbister Bay... goodbye sunshine |
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| A small flock of Great Northern Divers |
Yesterday, the weather was much improved, well drier at least, and a trip to Marwick Head produced my first Stoat sighting in ages (ok, ok, a Stoat's not a bird, I know).
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| Marwick Head and the Brough of Birsay |
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| From Marwick Head looking south to Hoy |
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| Stoat on the cliffs |
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| Hoy and the Old Man |
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| Marwick Choin and Head, with the Kitchener Memorial |
Today was just peachy, so a slight detour through Finstown was called for en route to the big city to twitch a rare duck and search the Community Garden for more common birds. The instruction for finding the rare duck was "Look in the bay, behind the bus shelter" and to be honest, driving by the bus stop at 30mph produced the goods, but I did park up and take some photos.
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| Velvet Scoter |
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| Not a clue, but possibly from New Zealand? |
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| Hydrangea? |
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| Still clueless |
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| Mahonia? |
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| Rose |
If memory serves, I didn't see a Velvet Scoter in 2020 (perhaps scoters have stricter lockdown guidelines?), so I'm taking today as a positive sign. Additionally, there were brief views of a leucistic Greenfinch in the Gardens, a bird which is more white and yellow than green. Almost inevitably, it is known locally as Tweety Pie.
That's all, Folks!
Incredible photography. As Old Ingo say's 'it's all about being at the right place at the right time'..but you were at the right place at the right time! Kudos to you Graeme.
ReplyDeleteApparently some people get GND's confused with Courmorants 🤐
ReplyDeleteHi Mark, your cultural reference is lost on me, I'm afraid, but having a camera to hand at all times certainly helps. Yeah, those sea birds all look the same, sure enough!
ReplyDeleteIs "Hoy and the Old Man" the name of the cliffs, or are you referencing yourself? Those GNDs look like grebes to me, but then again your cormorants across the pond are different than ours. And, as you know, I'm rubbish at bird ID's.
ReplyDeleteHoy is the island to the south west of the Orkney mainland. It is the most Shetland-like of the archipelago, being much more rugged and high (hence Hoy) with only a thin ribbon of lowland farmland on the east coast. The Old Man is a sea stack on the west coast of Hoy. There are grebes and divers in Scapa Flow at this time of year. During the Spring and Summer months, we have breeding Red-throated Divers and Little Grebes, but all the others are Winter visitors (Great Northern, White-billed, Black-throated Divers and Slavonian and Red-necked Grebes).
DeleteStoat issue still an ongoer I guess 😡🤬
ReplyDeleteThe project is hiring, if you're interested!
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