Last Day

 Final day on Sanday (but still with a second boat crossing to do and then 700-ish miles to drive tomorrow, and possibly Sunday if I don't last the distance in one day!).

I shall miss it for sure, the wilderness, the solitude, the relaxed atmosphere. But I won't miss the wind, which this year has been pretty persistent. 

Today was no exception, with more sharp showers thrown in, but despite the testing conditions it's been an excellent day for swans and geese.

I didn't exactly rush out though, waiting for a couple of particularly nasty showers to pass. And most of what I've done has involved driving around scanning fields and lochs. It's mostly been too windy to be getting amongst bushes after small birds, and similarly I didn't fancy walking any loops, being battered the whole time and intermittently drenched!

First decent birds were a group of 4 Pale-bellied Brent Geese on the Overbister road, a small taste of things to come.

Heading out east I encountered my first flock of Whooper Swans of the day: seven birds at Newark that briefly settled on the water there before continuing into the howling westerly.

I decided to head straight for seawatch, and there on the sea was another Whooper flock, that eventually headed over land.

Next up was another flock of seven, which rather conveniently flew right past Start Point's humbug-striped lighthouse.

A Merlin zipped past Neuks a couple of times, and 4 Snow Buntings were accompanied by a bonus Siskin, the 111th and final addition to the trip list.

The seawatch itself (1¼ hrs of it) included 8 Sooty Shearwaters, 100 Kittiwakes, singles of Arctic  and Great Skua and perhaps as many as 3 Great Northern Divers.

Also more wildfowl, with two flocks of Pink-footed Geese passing through, plus a pair of Barnacle Geese and a couple of small flocks of Greylag Geese arriving.

I drove the North Loch loop today, stopping off for more incoming Whooper Swans , plus good numbers more on Loch Rummie and North Loch.

More Pink-footed Geese  headed over too, with a final count of moving birds of 222 (plus a grounded flock of 15 at Oyce later).

And one last flock of Whoopers on Loch Langamay took the total for those to 150.

A Brambling was seen along the Cleat road.

After lunch I drove the roads of the Burness peninsula again, scanning through loads more wader flocks and failing to find anything rarer than the Ruff.

And Stangasettar "garden", which last year was a great source of migrants, but this year has had none, turned up something at last, in the shape of a late Willow Warbler.

So I'm now off Sanday and waiting to board the boat at Stromness, very sad to be leaving Orkney again.

Wild Weather Again

 Been a wild day of persistently strong winds, gusting frequently to force 9, and lots of squally showers, often torrential, and including some hail.

Rock Pipit struggling to stay stood up on the harbour wall

Basically, if I'd been at home I probably would barely have set foot outdoors! Even here, effort has been lower than usual, and most birding has been done from the car. The exception was this morning, when I had a most unlikely seawatch; more of that shortly.

Early on I was basically restricting my birding to watching the Bay of Brough through the kitchen window. Good numbers of Shags were flying in and feeding in a tight group in the inshore waters.

Clearly a lot of fish had been pushed into the bay by the wind and swell, confirmed by plenty of Gannets diving out there too. At one point a Great Skua menacingly monitored the feeding, but this was soon driven off by large gulls. A single Kittiwake and a female-type Red-breasted Merganser also added themselves to the garden list, and a ringtail Hen Harrier did a couple of fly-pasts over the land.

After a while it struck me that perhaps I should be heading to somewhere where seabirds may have been forced to shelter from the winds, hopeful of maybe a petrel or phalarope. A quick glance at the map suggested Kettletoft Harbour would be the place: somewhere with shelter of sorts from the elements, and overlooking the bay there. But certainly not somewhere that could be classified as ideal for a seawatch.

Whilst there was nothing untoward there when I arrived, it was nice to see close Red-throated Diver, Black Guillemot and Guillemot.

There was a steady stream of Gannets heading into the westerly wind through Sanday Sound, which divides Sanday and Stronsay to the south, many of them really close.

Also reasonable numbers of Kittiwakes.

Adults

And a first year

Then at one point I picked out a couple of Arctic Skuas, a pale adult and dark juvenile, not too far out and I reached for the camera in the hope of some sort of record shot. But I was just about to take aim when another juvenile skua came gliding in and flew directly over my head no more than five metres up. I had a hunch what it was, based on jizz, but aimed the camera near it and took a lot of pictures of sky as it wheeled about nearby, close enough that I even heard it call. It then flew off a bit further and sat on the sea for a while, but further photo attempts were thwarted by the fact that I was facing into a howling gale, and it soon departed.

Fortunately a few of the early shots had been accurate, if not entirely in focus, but good enough to confirm my original suspicions that it was a Pomarine Skua.

Also of interest during the watch was a couple of flocks of Barnacle Geese, of 32 and 12 birds. The first flock headed out over the sea, so low they were dodging between the big waves. I'm hoping they all made it safely to the SW peninsula of the island and then had the good sense to rest up!

Also in the harbour were 3 Sandwich Terns and 11 Eider, and then after about an hour and a half I headed home to warm up!

Eider and Black Guillemot

After an extended lunch break I headed out in the car for more searching through wader flocks in fields in search of that elusive AGP or buff-breast. No joy unfortunately, although I did find the Greenshank at Thorness again.

And a Ruff near Oyce. 

Searching gardens up that way was as pointless as expected, although a single redpoll sp flew over Thorwald calling.

Popped in to Riverside Cottage on the way through to Lady, and found the Spotted Flycatcher still present in the same spot. 

Gardens in Lady produced just a single Robin, a male Hen Harrier was seen briefly out towards Cata Sands and then a check of the Cleat Road/North Hill area turned up a very flighty Wheatear.

Back at the hostel early further scanning of the bay revealed a first-year Arctic Tern, although the fact that it was often resting on the choppy sea may not bode well for it.

And that was about it for what was a very exhausting day, despite not having actually done that much.

Redefining Rarity

 Another day on Sanday, another morning North Loch loop walk!

A little late starting as I waited for early rain to ease, and a nice treat on the drive over with a Short-eared Owl at point blank range beside the car, just before Sinclair Stores. It flew so close I could look into its eyes, before it nonchalantly wheeled away. A magical moment.

First decent bird of the day was a high-flying southbound Grey Wagtail over Salties, a bird that is barely annual on Sanday.

At The Gallery I was welcomed for the second time this trip by a Sparrowhawk, but once again there were still other birds to be had, not least a Yellow-browed Warbler, badly photographed as ever! 

Also a Chiffchaff and a couple of Goldcrests.

Plenty of Redwings were about again, inluding the odd incoming flock, but mostly hanging around today, with at least 159 seen through the day.

2 Goldfinches dropped in briefly at Galilee, and then shortly after this I nearly overlooked what is another "barely annual" species on the island. They had been calling a while, I realised after, but suddenly something in my head clicked into Sanday mode, and I had myself a Sanday tick in the shape of two Jackdaws! Needless to say I was a bit late with the camera. Sometimes you have to concentrate on the most unexpected things when somewhere new.

Honest

7 Whooper Swans were on North Loch today, but other numbers were down.

Coming back round towards Loch Rummie the regular large Northwall Linnet flock contained at least one Twite, which had the decency not only to call but also to pose in full view.

Soon after this I got the day's almost obligatory Great Spotted Woodpecker sighting.

Headed down to Neuks for what ended up being a 45-minute seawatch as I hid behind the hut from downpours. 4 Sooty Shearwaters were seen, but it was pretty quiet, as I'd expected in the now-quite-strong SW winds. A Great Northern Diver practically overhead was nice though.

On the way back to the car a Snow Bunting flew over calling, but unseen.

After a late lunch I headed down to Stove to see if anything was there. En route I passed 2 Pink-footed Geese in a stubble field, my first since arriving on the island. Last year I saw quite a few here, so I'd wrongly assumed that those I saw over Speyside (and Charnock Richard Services!) on the way up were the prelude to more regular sightings, but it hasn't been the case.

Stove had a Goldcrest and 2 Stonechats and, remarkably, the second Grey Wagtail of the day, which dropped in for a couple of minutes.

Stopped off at the school (after closing time!, where the wood had a Brambling and a Chiffchaff, whilst adjacent fields still hosted good numbers of Swallows (at least 60, out of a total for the day of 89+). 

A Buzzard away off to the north of the airfield was another Sanday tick for me, and then when I got back to the hostel I was treated to cracking views of a ringtail Hen Harrier to round off a day which had 75 species, including a good dose of surprises.

With the aforementioned Sinclair's Stores in the background

Autumnal

 A day of two halves today, certainly in terms of weather.

The morning was constantly wet, the afternoon more or less dry, and as is Orkney's way, pretty windy throughout. But, importantly, much less windy than the last wet day so it was possible to get out and check a few gardens and scan fields of waders from the car.

Nothing unusual to report of course, but plenty to count. Certainly saw a lot of Snipe, with them flushed from the roadside and near edges of fields - the morning session turned up at least 110 of them.

Plenty of other stuff too, and it's testament to Sanday's diversity that by the time I got back I for an early lunch I already had a day list of 42.

Rather bedraggled Golden Plover and Skylark

A single Whooper Swan was on Roos Loch, as were 2 Red-breasted Merganser.

Back at the hostel I was most surprised to be met by what was presumably "the" Yellow-browed Warbler cheerfully calling away and flitting about (as it wasn't seen yesterday I guess it might just have been a different bird). It was to be the day's only warbler, and today was my first without a Wheatear.

After lunch I headed into the middle of the island, stopping en route to count a decent flock of 65 Swallows near the school (83 in total today, which musty be a decent count up here this late, and so out of context with most of the rest of the day's birding).

I parked up by the surgery (a Brambling was in the trees there) for an anticlockwise lap from Lady to Little Sea and back, including a minor detour to Riverside Cottage, where I was surprised to find the Spotted Flycatcher from two days ago still present, in pretty much exactly the same spot. 

The North Ronaldsay WhatsApp group had been reporting big numbers of moving Redwings and pretty much as soon as I got out of the car it was apparent that Sanday was having some of the thrushy action too. 

Throughout the afternoon flocks were flying through; sometimes they kept going, often they pitched into gardens for a while before moving on, sometimes a few hung around a bit longer.

In the end my total for the day was 642 and no doubt I missed lots when visibility was restricted (and in any case Sanday is quite a big island so presents a pretty broad front). For perspective, my 12 days last year produced just over a hundred in total. Vismig is my favourite aspect of birding, and this was a joy to witness.

Down at Little Sea I counted more waders, and a few ducks (including another 9 Red-breasted Mergansers) and then noticed an auk out on the water. Little Sea is only narrowly joined to the open sea, so, although tidal, is almost semi-inland. Definitely not the place to expect an auk, especially as zooming in revealed it to be a first year Puffin! It was too distant for a photo, so I decided to head out on the little spit of land to try and get closer to it. But by the time I got there, it had vanished. Completely. I couldn't see it on the water or on any of the shores. There were no gulls bigger than Common to blame, and whilst it could feasibly have flown off, what seems likeliest is that it was taken by the seal that was in almost exactly the same spot. Until that point (and the subsequent internet search) I had no idea that seals ate seabirds, although it makes sense that they would if there was an easy target.

Scanning the roosting gulls produced a first year Kittiwake and 3 Sandwich Terns.

Two Common Redpolls flew in at Isegarth, but that was about it for migrants other than Redwings and Swallows.

Back at the hostel there was a Kestrel, and a Ruff flying around the beach before heading off inland was a surprise, although not as much so as the fact that my full zoom full crop photo was actually identifiable!

More rain forecast tomorrow morning, but calmer, so I ought to get out in it, especially as from lunchtime tomorrow I've just got endless strong westerlies to endure for the rest of my stay.