Wet and Wild

 Well, the forecast said wet and windy, and boy was it wet and windy! For a period around midday the wind was gusting around 70mph, and being outside was not for consideration!

But, just as forecast, around 4pm the wind dropped (to a much more manageable F5-6) and the rain stopped (bar one sharp shower) and I was straight out into the field. 

A Great Northern Diver in the bay outside the hostel was nice.

But it was gardens I was most interested in, so I headed out towards Broughton and Burness. The first garden I checked held a Redwing which was promising, and over the next 2½ hours or so I saw at least 17 of them, plus a couple of Song Thrushes. 

Also at the first stop a Merlin dashed through, and soon after 2 Kestrels circled overhead together, with another seen hovering later at Scar.

The garden at Thornwald had my second Great Spotted Woodpecker of the trip too.

Stopped in Thorness to scan a field of waders, but they spooked and I only got flight views of a bonus Greenshank .

Up at Burness my first stop was at Woodhouse, an unoccupied house with an amazing garden that ought to hold masses. Last year I visited it loads and saw not a single migrant. Today was very different, as half an hour doing laps of its various corners produced a Yellow-browed Warbler , a Siberian Chiffchaff , a Lesser Whitethroat  and a rather dark-legged Willow Warbler , but only the latter posed for a photo.

I checked out a few more gardens out to Upper Breckan without further reward, although on the way back a male Sparrowhawk completed a rather unexpectedly good raptor afternoon.

Popped to Sinclair Stores for some provisions and while in that area, a nice count of 55 Hooded Crows flew over to roost somewhere near Bea Loch, and a Wheatear was flushed from the road.

Back at the hostel, with it almost dark, a Grey Heron on the adjacent beach rounded off a surprisingly high day list of 46 species.

There had clearly been a decent arrival of birds last night, and it was a shame the weather was too bad to properly get amongst it, but with tomorrow forecast sunny and dry (if quite windy) I'm hoping that it's windy enough tonight to deter too much from leaving overnight.

And maybe something has come in from the west too!

Before The Storm

 Day two, and an excellent one too. Virtually no wind, and whilst it was cloudy all day too it's mostly been pretty pleasant. Unfortunately it's not going to last, with rain forecast more or less all day tomorrow, with gales gusting to F12 at times!

Which made it all the more important to make the most of today.

Headed straight out east, and the Salties garden soon delivered. A Common Whitethroat skulked deep in bushes, but a Lesser Whitethroat in the same area was slightly more obliging.

Not much of a photo admittedly, but it took ages for the light to brighten this morning and this pic was taken with 1/10 second shutter speed, it was that gloomy.

Two Robins and a Goldcrest were also in the garden here.

I moved on to The Gallery, via the back of Loch Rummie, which held 20 Coot, 4 Little Grebes and 3 Moorhens.

The Gallery held Chiffchaff, Goldcrest and another 2 Robins, and a Snow Bunting was heard overhead.

 Most Robins here are pretty skulking, and this is a fairly typical view.

So I really have no idea what this one was playing at!

From The Gallery I headed over towards Sandquoy in the hope of relocating yesterday's Rosy Starling, but the Starling numbers there were well down on yesterday. Presumably it's still about (there are probably well into five figures of Starling on the island), just feeding in a different place.

A Song Thrush was a trip list addition just before there, and 2 Wheatears (3 in total today) were on the beach soon after.

Singles of Red-throated and Great Northern Divers (of respective totals of 3 and 8 today) were in the bay, but I couldn't find yesterday's Arctic Redpoll.

A single Purple Sandpiper was on rocks at Tofts.

Purple Sand to the left of a nice Shag and Cormorant comparison

I scanned North Loch from the north end, with plenty of wildfowl present. 450 Wigeon was an excellent number, and among the 40 Tufted Duck I found a single Scaup.

Also present were 8 Whooper Swans

Two more Snow Buntings flew over, and a Peregrine, probably a male, came in and landed on a telegraph pole for a while.

From here I decided to cut across the fields to the beach on the east coast, and this proved to be a good move.

There were plenty of waders on the shore, lots of seals just offshore, a Lapland Bunting flew north, and there were Otter prints in the sand

Also nice to get good close views of a Snow Bunting on the deck.

Then, just as I reached the point where I was to head back inland I flushed a bird with an instantly recognisable rufous tail base. Thankfully it perched up sort of in the open and I got some nice views (and, more surprisingly, some acceptable photos) of a lovely Bluethroat, before it dived into the thickest marram grass and I let it be.

Back at The Gallery, an overflying Goldfinch (quite a scarcity up here)

and then a couple of Common Redpoll convinced me to abandon my plan of spending the afternoon at Burness in the NW. 

Instead I headed down towards Start Point, in the hope that other stuff had arrived. It hadn't (although if the tide had been right for me to cross to Start who knows what I may have found?), but once at Neuks I decided I may as well give the sea a quick look. This quick look ended up being two hours thanks to a steady stream of birds. As always it was mostly Kittiwakes (516N), Gannets (152N, 71S), Fulmars (173N, 4S) and auks. But an excellent back up including 46 Sooty Shearwaters, 10 Manx Shearwaters, a flock of 4 Great Northern Divers and 3 Great Skuas. An adult Arctic Tern was the only decent bird close enough for a sensible pic.

I thought for a while that the highlight was going to be the pale phase adult Pomarine Skua that powered through low to the sea, but then an hour and a half in I picked up the distinctive shape and jizz of a "large shearwater" heading north, and over the next minute or so was able to see it well enough to identify as what (I am ashamed to say) was my first ever Great Shearwater!! Good numbers were seen off Orkney last week and I was afraid I'd missed the boat, so to say I was pleased would be an understatement!!

And so I headed off back west, stopping off to jam into a Yellow-browed Warbler in the surgery garden (another skulker that didn't want its photo taken).

Given the forecast, I wonder whether I'll see any more this trip. 

Slowly made my way back "home", including stopping for an excellent flock of 115 Swallows near Little Isegarth (with a Kestrel there too).

All in all an excellent day, maybe not the rarities they have on the smaller islands, but a superb selection, and the kind of all-round birding that makes Sanday a real pleasure to visit!

And a day list of 78 species proves the point.

Sanday Starts With A Bang

Finally made it!

And so glad I did!

No doubting bird of the day:

Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll

But more of that later.

Finally arrived on the island at 0910, just the forty hours late, and after settling in at Ayres Rock Hostel (with the first migrant noted in the garden - a typically furtive Robin) I headed straight to Lady Village, popping into the shop for some snacks and giving the gardens there a grilling (not much there, just two more Robins of which I ended up totalling six).

And then it was out east to do the North Loch loop. Plenty of highlights, including a little bit of obvious arrival: a Redwing flew in from the east, and a Goldcrest did likewise, pausing briefly on a wire. A Willow Warbler called from deep in the bushes at The Gallery, and it was here that I also had an Orkney tick in the shape of a Great Spotted Woodpecker. I knew that up to four had been around recently, but I didn't know where, and it was nice to not have to twitch it!

Walking north from there a scan of a 300-strong Golden Plover flock revealed a Ruff (obviously with a minor heart attack before it was seen sufficiently well), with a Peregrine going over soon after.

And then island resident Russ Neave appeared in his car. Had I got his message? No, signal on my phone is awful. Well get in, I've found a Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll!!

After a shortish wait it treated us to some really nice views on the beach and nearby posts

And then after Russ headed off to work, I was really spoiled as it posed on fences surrounding the garden at Meur, where I eventually left it, still out in the open

 

A couple of Wheatears were on the beach in this area, but I was in for another shock as I headed inland from Sandquoy - a group of about 50 Starlings bathing on a field edge included a juvenile Rose-coloured Starling!

Unfortunately they were close enough to being behind vegetation that my camera refused to focus on them, and soon after they flew off to join a much larger flock a few hundred yards away in stubble. I picked it out a couple of times on the deck, and a couple more when birds perched up on wires, but the whole lot moved further away and I eventually gave up trying for a pic. A couple of Lapland Buntings flying over there was nice, even if my pictures weren't!

Back down at Salties I got glimpses of the Willow Warbler, but it was tricky

But not as tricky as the Goldcrest!

And that was more or less the end of an excellent less than a day. 56 species noted, and nice weather (for here). Another nice day forecast for tomorrow, but then it's going seriously downhill for Friday!

Nearly There

 A day of not covering a lot of ground, and not doing a great deal, and yet finally making some significant progress.

After a squally morning killing time in Thurso I headed the short distance to Scrabster late morning, way earlier than necessary but as much as anything for something to do.

I had lots more time to kill once I'd checked in, but thankfully there were a few birds in the harbour, most enjoyable of which was a very photogenic Black Guillemot; always a charismatic species, but one I have a special affinity with after finding the bizarre Barton bird in July 2021.

I took an awful lot of pics, but there wasn't really much else to do!

That said there were other birds in the harbour, including cooing Eider

And Shag

Guillemot  and Razorbill were also present but more distant, and a Chiffchaff skulked in bushes whilst a couple of House Martins braved it overhead.

Once on the boat there were atmospheric photo opportunities with Gannets and rainbows.

Whilst I may not yet be at my final destination (tomorrow morning!!) it was such a relief to drive off the ferry and onto Orkney, a place I absolutely love. After the short drive from quaint Stromness to homely Kirkwall, taking in the view of the Stones of Stenness en route, I checked into my hostel, paid Tesco a visit for provisions, then gave the Peerie Sea (a just-inland artificial body of water) a half hour look before wandering up to St Magnus Cathedral and having dinner in the St Ola Hotel, both more or less essential.

The Peerie Sea actually provided me with two Orkney ticks (not that my Orkney list is much to shout about despite having spent four months on the islands):

A Goosander

And a couple of Scaup

But most importantly: Sanday tomorrow!!