Last post of 2014

  Here we are, Christmas is almost over and so is 2014, but what a year it has been !

  I have been so, so, lucky to have yet another fantastic year here on Unst. From seeing some wonderful auroras (including one from Hermaness) to spending many, many privileged hours watching the lives of Gannets from only a few feet away. From seeing one of the first eggs, to birds ready to leave the relative safety of their nest it was so easy to get 'lost' in their world. On a number of occasions, I would turn away from the birds and 'wake up' to the reality where I was, feeling I'd been in a different place'. Two posts about the gannets here and here .

 Feb 27th from Ordaal

March 26th over Flugga

  On the bird front, I was quite lucky to have found 3 BBs ( 'British Birds' rarities), two at Haroldswick and one at Skaw (Yellow-rumped Warbler, Citrine Wagtail and Spotted Sandpiper at Skaw) - links here and here .

Yellow-rumped Warbler Haroldwick May 8th 2014

Citrine Wagtail at Haroldswick May 23rd 2014

Spotted Sandpiper Skaw 15th May 2014

 Back in March, there was a stranding of two Sperm Whales down at Muness; in all, it was over three weeks from when they were discovered to when they were finally buried......

Sperm Whale at Muness in March

  ....... more pics etc here

  During the Easter break, we had two very enjoyable weeks in North Zealand, Denmark and for most of it had good weather. One of the highlights for me was seeing good numbers of Tree Sparrows from the window of the farm where we were staying, sadly not a very common sight in the UK now....

Tree Sparrow, Denmark

  Returning home, it wasn't long before I was back up to the Gannets.....

 

  and also by now the Puffins had returned.......

  One very nice bonus was a pair of Slavoinian Grebes (that were in breeding plumage),that spent more than a week in the bay at Haroldswick. Unfortunately for most of the time, they were too far out to photograph, but on one day they were very close to the shore and allowed me to photograph them from the car........

 

  For most of my 'spare' time in June and July I spent down with the Gannets as I mentioned earlier, but I also did squeeze in some birding as well.....

 

 

 Rustic Bunting

 Lesser Grey Shrike

 Pectoral Sandpiper

Oystercatcher

..... although I have to say, I didn't 'find' the first three birds. Also in June and July, I was guiding for my friend Brydons'  tour company 'Shetland Nature'. After the 'first night' nerves so to speak (even though I'd done them before), it turned out to be very enjoyable taking people around Unst (and Fetlar) on day trips - and meeting some nice folk as well. On the way to Fetlar for one trip, I had was very lucky to get Porpoise riding the wake, which is apparently not that common.....

Porpoise

 

 August again was partly taken up with visits to Hermaness - at both ends of the day - and by now things starting to quieten down with the Puffins and auks.The Puffins seemed to be doing well, bringing in lots of sandeels and other quite large fish at times......

 

  Weather-wise, we had a very good summer - not too hot (thankfully) but we did have many, many days without rain and lots of very calm days also.

 'Out Stack'

High level Noctilucent  Clouds over Baltasound

Bonxie sunset

  At the end of August, the nights were getting darker and I saw my first aurora of the 'autumn' on the 28th. A few days later, when the moon was around 'half', there was another. This time I went down to the standing stone at Lund, but sadly by the time I'd got there, it had died down somewhat......

 28th August over Baltasound

Standing stone at Lund 5th Sept.

  September and October was quite good for migrants this year, although not as good as other years - Mainland certainly was much better this year. For some of the highlights the link is here .....

 'Northern' Treecreeper in Haligarth

 Rough'legged Buzzard at Westing

Greenshank at Haroldswick

  November, weather-wise, was a cracking month. Very mild, not too much wind and rain and often it  was just a fleece jumper sort of day. Birdwise, the highlight has to be the Pied Wheatear that Brydon found at Haroldswick; which, after some initial difficulties, was very easy to see and remained for at least a week. It was on one of these days, that I found a lovely Grey Phalarope just a few yards from the shore at Haroldswick which proved to be quite a confiding wader. I love Grey Phals', they are very hardy, spending much of the winter on the open ocean and usually (although still uncommon in Shetland) occur after bad weather.......

 Grey Phalarope

Pied Wheatear

  In December, it was all change. We had a number of gales - storm force at times - rain and even a little bit of snow. Over the Christmas period, the weather settled down to be quite cold, clear and still. On four out of five nights we had mild auroras giving an eerie green glow to the north - sadly no 'curtains' but great to see anyway..........

Westing

Muckle Flugga

Muckle Flugga light-house

     Robbie

Gannets Galore - Pt 2

  In the first part of this which I did here back in July, I said I'd hoped to get up to see the Gannets until mid October (at least);  well, unfortunately my last visit of the year (while there were Gannets present) was on September 9th - which was also my birthday.

  Continuing on from the end of the first part, the next visit to the Gannets was on July 18th. On this occasion I headed to the south end to The Neap and Saito. Going around to Saito, I noticed offshore to the west, hundreds and hundreds of Gannets circling. Thinking that maybe there might be a whale or some Orcas feeding below, I scanned the area with my bins but quickly saw the reason for the soaring birds and that was four kayakers paddling along the base of the cliffs. They really did create a good scale to the scene before me.........

The same image cropped in

What you looking at ?

  It wasn't until 4th August (which also happened to be the date I'd started work as an apprentice joiner 40 years ago) that I returned 'down the banks'. By now many of the young Gannets - or gugas - were now covered in white fluffy down. The day was sunny with a few white 'cotton wool' clouds,  but what I wasn't expecting was what happened  an hour or so after I arrived. I'd been sitting down watching and photographing the birds using the 500 when suddenly it started to rain (the wind was blowing from behind me). The wind picked up and for 15 minutes, it poured down - or rather almost horizontally; I got completely soaked from head to toe, inside my clothes and boots and out ! Despite this, there were some interesting pictures to be had; however, the 500 was on the camera sitting on the tripod and my bag was quite a few yards away. If I moved or tried to change the lens, then water would almost certainly have got into the camera lens throat so I made do with what was attached to the camera body. It was a sad sight to see the young birds with their once fluffy down, now looking like very wet sheep's wool. The conditions for photography were horrible, for quite a few minutes the rain was that heavy that it gave a 'soft focus' effect, not because of rain on the lens, but because of the shear volume of water that was coming down.......

Once the rain had past, the birds soon dried out and things got back to normal.......

  I went back again the following afternoon and believe it or not, it was too hot ! So much so that some of the ewes and their large lambs, were using the east side of the stack for some shade - much to the annoyance of some of the nesting Gannets.......

  I did see another all too frequent sight, of a bird bringing in plastic for their nest. On this occasion however, it didn't remain for long as a few days later I'd noticed it had gone - probably blown off by the wind - but still in the sea no doubt......

   It was around ten days later that I was next up to Hermaness, but I didn't spend long down with the Gannets. This time I wanted to carry on to the northern end of the reserve and go down a long gully which leads to a boulder beach - which really is Britain's most northerly beach. Care has to be taken though as after very heavy rain, quite large amounts of soil gets washed down the 45 degree slope.

  As I rounded the side of the hill I was amazed to see what must have been several thousand Gannets feeding in the stretch of water between Flugga and the end of the reserve - although nearer Flugga than to me. As I watched, the numbers of the birds grew and also the area in which they were feeding. Over the space of 15 minutes or so, the flock of birds moved across the sound and towards the small bay at the end of the gully. I scrambled down and within a few minutes I was sitting on the rocky beach watching the birds feeding just metres from me. Some of the birds were diving in to only a few feet of water and occasionally one would overshoot and land on the shore just feet from me. It was now that I regretted taking on-board some advice that Brydon and one of his guests had suggested recently and that was to reduce the amount I carried in my camera bag. On this occasion I had just two lenses (instead of the usual four) they being the 500 and the 10- 20 wide angle zoom. One was too wide and the other was too much magnification - even the 24-105 would have been enough. Below are some shots with the 500mm and a link to a video which lasts around 30 seconds....

A wide angle view as the birds moved in to the bay

The link to a short hand held video - here

  After 40 minutes or so, I left and climbed back up to the grassy cliff top to head back. I'd only gone a few yard from the top, when I saw two people in red coats (why to folk where bright red coats to a nature reserve is beyond me) come hurrying over towards me. I'd seen them earlier from a distance - well they were quite obvious - and quickly discovered they were French. They both seemed pleased to see me and straight away asked if I was the warden, obviously replying 'no' I asked why they wanted to know. They said they'd seen a Gannet caught in a net and wanted some help so I followed them back along the cliff top (bearing in mind we were around 50 metres above the sea). They turned and pointed out to the sound towards Flugga and there, some several hundred metres away, was a Gannet drifting in the current, tangled in some fishing net. Asking what they were expecting me to do, they said 'can I get a boat ?' Explaining that the nearest boat was Baltasound and was probably at least an hour away and that nobody would come out for a Gannet, they were not convinced. I also explained that either the bird would drown fairly quickly given the current or Bonxies would get it in that time. I spent the next ten minutes trying to convince them helping the bird was not an option and so from their joyous first meeting they were now quite upset, the woman almost in tears.

  I  left them looking out at the sound and I continued my walk back south, it was a lovely afternoon and I made the decision to return that evening. My idea was to set up the camera and leave it over night to do a time-lapse. Back there by just before seven pm, I set up the gear and hoped everything would work as planned.

  Returning the following morning, I retrieved the camera and checked the images. There were over 800 frames but there were a couple of things I hadn't considered the previous evening - a strip of cloud on the northern horizon and the direction of the slight breeze. The wind had brought the cloud in and in turn the wind had helped deposit a lot of dust and bits of down on to the camera lens ! ......

An unintentional soft focus effect.

  Going back up there yet again that evening, it was very atmospheric with the birds starting to settle down for the evening and lots of Puffins also coming back to their burrows high up on the cliffs.......

  My last visit to Hermaness while the Gannets were in residence was on September 9th - which was also my birthday. The gugas were now well developed although there still quite a few in down feathers; but due to some recent rain, they weren't looking their best........

You're how old ? :)

  Probably my last visit of the year (unless we have some snow) was on November 20th. The morning was fairly still and sunny - even quite warm at times - at around 10 degrees. The hills were quiet with just the occasional sound of a Raven or maybe some Grey-lag Geese flying over. Up at the cliffs obviuosly there were no Gannets, but there were scores of Fulmars either soaring around or sitting on nest ledges cackling at one another. I do find the cliffs an eerie place out of season, but at least the Fulmars do keep it 'alive' so to speak. ........

November 20th 2014

  Robbie