A  day after we arrived back, we had a light covering of snow on the hills and by heck it felt cold ! I had a couple of hours out with Brydon to look for the Humes Warbler he'd found at Norwick last week that was still around. Unfortunately the bird wasn't to be seen, but we did have a pipit fly up from the roadside in front of the car. Brydon had a feeling it could be something special, but despite searching we couldn't find the bird again.

   The following day I was over at Norwick again and had a pipit on the road in front of me. Having a really poor view through the front windscreen with my bins', all I could really see was that it had quite a distinctive head patten. Fortunately I saw where the bird landed and manged to get some record shots. My first thoughts when I saw it some way in front of the car was that it was an Olive-backed Pipit, however, now I could see the rest of it I could clearly see it had plain flanks and a mostly plain breast (just a bit of streaking on the throat). Checking 'Collins', I came to the conclusion it was one of two,  Richards Pipit - quite rare on Shetland - or Blyth's Pipit - very rare. Richard's tend to have the appearance of being long-legged and long tailed and in my limited experience of Richard's, this bird didn't appear to have either. Unfortunately this bird didn't turn out to be a Blyth's, just a small Richard's Pipit - still nice to find though.......

Richard's Pipit at Norwick

  Later on in the day (around 4-30pm), I was heading back home in the now fading light, when I noticed a small bird running along the roadside in front of my car. Slowing down, all I could see of it was a prominent white eye stripe - I've got to nail this one, what ever happens. The bird had gone in to the long grass of the roadside ditch and most likely wouldn't be very easy to flush. I reached a gateway to a field and no bird had appeared, it must have popped over the wall in to some even thicker vegetation. Walking this through, the bird flew up and along on to our boundary wall, the trouble was, I was someway from our drive to count it  as a garden tick - what ever it was! A short time later, I re-found the bird as it was making its way down along the base of the wall of our field. I fired off a few frames at a ridiculously high ISO (5000 ISO) and then lost the bird in some bushes in the garden. Putting the shots straight onto the PC, I discovered what it was - a Bluethroat - either a female or a 1st winter bird as they have a very similar plumage..........

  A few days later (29th) I was heading up to towards Skaw from Norwick when I noticed a pale looking chat sitting on a roadside fence. For a split second I though ' female Whinchat', but then noticed its size and shape etc and realized it was a Stonechat. As it was so pale, I checked in 'Collin's' which confirmed my  thoughts it could possible be a 'Siberian' one (although I'd never seen one before). Two of the pointers were, lack of streaking on the rump and lack of streaking on the breast - both of which this bird had :)   .....

Siberian Stonechat, Norwick

  At just after midnight on the 30th, it was lovely and clear (and also very frosty) and also a full moon - called the 'Hunters Moon'. I went out to take some photographs and in no time at all I couldn't feel the ends of my fingers. It was one of those magical nights with no wind, no sound apart from the water gently lapping on the shore and a few geese calling......

Baltasound by moonlight - 00.30am Oct 30th 2012

  Later on at around 8am, I headed off around the field and down to the shore for one of my regular walks. I was expecting it to be a clear frosty morning but sometime late last night, cloud had come in and the place had 'warmed' up as it was now damp and cloudy. Heading across the small salt marsh area by the pools (hoping for a Jack Snipe), I heard a strange noise - a sort of a cross between a hiss and a cough. At first I though it was one of our cats but then saw just a few yards in front of me, an otter curled up amongst some tussock grass. I thought immediately it must be injured as it would usually be very difficult to get this close to one out in the open so easily. At first it didn't attempt to move away, but then after a couple of minutes it turned (looking slightly disorientated) and headed for the shingle bank. Sure enough, it was injured as it limped quite badly, holding its front right foot up off the ground. It was a male, but I didn't know if it was the male we see around here regularly and can only assume it had been in a fight with another male. It headed back in to the water and seemed to swim and dive normally - lets hope it's ok.

  Just as we'd left to go on holiday a couple of weeks ago, there had been an arrival of Waxwings in Shetland and I was thinking I'd miss out on them again. Well thankfully they were still around and I managed to see a few around Unst over the last few days of October and into November. On the 2nd, just as it was getting light, I looked out of the bedroom window to see six feeding around an apple I'd put out the day before (I'd been to Lerwick that day). It has been the one bird that I'd wanted to get in the garden up here, so I was one happy bunny ! Over the next couple of days, I had some really special times watching and photographing them and at times, from very close quarters. As the Rosa bushes don't usually produce much in the way of berries, I fixed up a bolt on which I could hang a apple. This was useful on two counts, one was to benefit taking pictures of them, the other was to stop the chickens from eating it all. I don't normally do 'bird on stick' type photography, but this allowed me to position the food in a suitable position without a distracting and cluttered background. Below are a few of my favourites................

  Robbie