More Gannets and Puffins

  Well I suppose I'll start as normal with an Unst weather report ! The last two weeks generally have been good although not too sunny and warm - at least not much rain! The last few days have been very nice and now the wind is blowing from the south east and starting to blow a few migrants in.

   Last week I was over to Yell a couple of times and noticed a number of Gannets fishing close to the breakwater there. An opportunity not to be missed, I delayed my Bluemull crossing for a later one. Unfortunately the sky was pretty grey, but at least it wouldn't blow the whites and it would keep the 'midgets' at bay. When they dive from a height they certainly hit the water with a force and make quite a noise (the Gannets that is)..............

   Last Friday evening, we were going over to Yell for the evening to a 'Fiddle Frenzy' concert but had to go in to Uyeasound first. Driving past Easter Loch, I noticed a 'white-winged' gull standing at the edge of the water; my first thought was 'Glaucous' and that was that. The following morning (the concert was brill' by the way) I went down there again to try a get a shot of the bird. I found it 'loafing' around with a mixed flock of gulls in the centre of the village and managed a fairly long distance, record shot. Getting home later, I viewed it on the pc and thought 'that's not a Glauc', it's an Iceland' - wrong ! As it turned out, my original 'gut' feeling was right...

  For quite a few days now, I've been looking at the sea off of Lamba Ness in the hope of seeing a fin (or two?) as the sea has been pretty calm and the lighting has also been just right. Well on Saturday my efforts were rewarded with seeing a Minke there for half an hour before it headed south. Not particularly close, but nice to see none-the-less......

 Another sighting at Lamba Ness that got my heart racing for a moment was leucistic Starling. There had been several Rose-coloured Starlings on Shetland last week and when I first saw this one flying around, I thought I'd found my own - still nice to see though.....

A big crop - for the record

  A few nights ago, there was a meteor shower due but unfortunately on the first night it was cloudy. The second night was clear so I headed off outside after midnight to take a look, it was a cracking night but with a gentle wind blowing. There was a prediction of up to 100 an hour later on in the night, but as I'd promised Sula a day out the following day, I only stuck it out until 2am. During that time I reckon I saw 30 or so which was still pretty special. I did try and get some shots but as my interval timer release wasn't working (battery contacts were dirty as it turned out ) I failed in my quest. I did take a few at the shore earlier on though.......

12.40am across the sound

  The following day, I'd promised to spend the day with Sula at Hermaness. She is starting to use my 40D (when I'm with her) and, it has to be said, is developing an 'eye' for a photograph. Once she's grasped the basic technical stuff, I think she will do alright. We spent most of the day up there (from 9-30 till 5pm) and then went back up again for a sunset ! We were so engrossed in what we were doing, that we didn't even see the 100 or so White-sided Dolphins going north not far off shore between Saito and Muckle Flugga................

 

...she's getting the idea....

  ..... and a couple of Sula's..........

  Yesterday, I was out working in my shed (and enjoying having the new window open) when I noticed a dog Otter down at the shore drying itself on some exposed seaweed that was not yet covered by the rising tide. I watched it for almost half an hour before it slipped back in to the water.; as the wind was right, I fetched the camera and returned to the shore. Reaching the high wall at the noost I couldn't believe it, there on the shingle above the jetty, was a mother and two half grown cubs. Thankfully they hadn't seen me so I retreated and thought about my next step(s) as they could quite possibly come towards me through the grass and then I'd be rumbled. Thankfully they re-entered the sea and mum started fishing in between a bit of play. Mum brought a small fish out and dropped it by one of the cubs in the seaweed - the fish jumped about, which the cub then tried to catch. Even though the wind was well in my favour, I think she must have caught my silhouette or something as she retreated a short way out and kept hissing in my direction - a least she hadn't confirmed it was a human hiding not far away as she'd have taken the cubs away and I'd not have seen them again......

 The family

 Cub

Mum

  This morning (16th) I was due to go and do a job at the Shore Station and as the wind had been blowing from the south east for a couple of days, I took a look over a Skaw first. On the way however, there were a large number of Gannets fishing close-in to the shore at Haroldswick, so I stopped for a short while and took a few pics....................

 

  Over at Skaw, there were at least 7 Willow Warblers, a Garden Warbler and 4 Sanderlings on the beach - nothing to get too excited about................

 Sanderling

Turnstone

                  Robbie

  It's been another busy week again with visitors and also the final week of the Unst Fest. Last Tuesday I had a trip down to Lerwick for an X-ray on my knee and also to do a few shopping chores; I also had to go down to the airport to pick up Stuart and Lyn (my brother-in-law and sister in law). However, early afternoon, I got a message to say their plane from the Isle of Man had been cancelled due to fog down there. Oh well, back down again tomorrow then. One other good result for the day (as well as paying for the roof tiles) was that I bought a new pc. All I can say is that it is 'turbo charged' compared to my other one - although Windows 7 is taking a bit of getting used to. The big job now is copying a lot of the stuff across or backing files up to an external hard drive. My old pc was getting beyond a joke, sometimes it would take an hour for it to load after a number of re-starts etc and sometimes it would take a minute or more to load one raw file.

  So, the following day, I set off again to the airport and thankfully this time they did arrive. The weather here was great and we even got to see an otter at Toft. The evening was spent in the Baltasound village hall listening to live music - which was brilliant by the way. Over the next few days, we had time out around the island in what was mostly, fine and sunny weather.

  I was also lucky to get some time out on my own and also a trip out with Brydon around Muckle Flugga one evening (27th) on the 'Julie Rose'. When he called, it looked like it was going to be a good sunset;  however, by the time we got out there, it had clouded in a little but all the same just being around the Flugga at sunset was enough in itself. I'm sure we all have particular memories from each year and that evening will be one of them for this year. Just the light on the rocks, the hundreds of swirling gannets and also the noise was enough ! The last time I was out there with Brydon, I took some shots of him 'in action' so to speak and one of the shots was recently used in the latest RSPBs 'Birds' magazine advertizing Paramo clothing. So a big 'thanks' to Brydon and the crew of the  'Julie Rose' Below are just a few pics from then.....

   Friday 27th was as virtually everyone will have known (even if they aren't interested - the media sees to that),  the day of the opening ceremony for the London Olympics; here on Unst, some of the comunity was taking part too. At 12 minutes past 8 in the morning, bells would ring out throughout the country and here on Unst it was going to be at the beach at Skaw. We arrived in rather damp conditions to see around 30 folk plus Radio Shetland and Shetland Arts who were going to record the event for radio and possibly television. Finally the count down and then several minutes of bell ringing with folk using all kinds of bells, led by (appropriately enough) Belle Spence.............

The Unst ringers  (Belle Spence is in white)

.....the following day was far nicer weather

  Later that day I went off up to Hermaness for a sunset. I didn't have anything particular in mind but if the opportunity arose then I did want to get a picture of the setting sun shining on a Gannet. At the top of the boardwalk by the cliffs were a couple of guys lying in wait for (I assume) Puffins so I headed off south to Saito and the Gannetry. Further along the cliffs was a tripod and camera bag on the cliff top with no owner in sight. I don't know why but in situations like this I always think the worst and that maybe someone had slipped. Fortunately, a short while later the owner appeared having been led down further along the cliffs photographing Puffins with a wide angle. Getting to the spot I wanted to be at, there were a few Gannets high up which was great. The sun was dipping fast but I had just enough time to get some pictures.....

Dunlin at Hermaness

  Once the sun had gone down, I returned back along the cliff top past the photographer who was also packing up. Introducing ourselves, it turned out he was Danny Green, a well known and successful wildlife photographer.

  One thing that I have mentioned before, is that of wool getting entangled around birds feet.  For some reason, I seem to have seen more of it this summer than previous ones. It is usually Lapwings, Curlews and Oystercatchers etc (ie waders) but also occasionally gulls. This is obviously due to their feeding methods - foraging in grass fields where there is also sheep. During the last week I've seen 4 or 5 birds with varying amounts of wool around their legs. One bird was a young Oystercatcher over at Lamba Ness which hadn't long started to fly. I noticed it limping and then saw the wool around one of its ankles. I pursued it and after several short flights it became tired and I managed to dive and catch it before it found refuge in some stinging nettles. It had cut into the leg quite some way, but wasn't bleeding and looked quiet 'clean'. It took at least 5 minutes to carefully remove the strands of wool and apart from the quite deep mark, the bird was ok - but it still wasn't grateful as it constantly tried to peck me. I did think at the time that if I was going to either kill or eat it (not that I'd have done that) I'd have done it within seconds, not held it in my hand for such a long time - but the bird obviously didn't know that !................

...after the 'operation'

  and an adult that would be impossible to catch.................

  When ever I go across Bluemull Sound on the ferry, I almost always have the camera ready on the seat (if the weather is being kind to me that is). Coming back across yesterday - after a trip off island to take Stuart and Lyn to town - it was a gorgeous calm, sunny, afternoon. Half way across, I noticed a Bonxie having a go at a Gannet fairly close to the boat so I grabbed a few shots. The downside was that it was into the sun so the images could have been better.....................

  The season is moving on and at the moment, fields are being cut for silage and then later on, hay. Each time I walk down the field to the shore, I get hassled by either the Tirricks or Redshanks as they both have fledged young around. The terns have fledged at least 3 young along the shore which is 3 more than last year so I suppose that is a 100% improvement. Another summer memory will be of the Tirricks hunting over the grass fields after sundown looking for insects, hovering momentarily, then either swooping down or moving on a few yards only to repeat it. Last night (31st July) was especially atmospheric as there was a mist over the fields and the Sound at 10.30pm................

 Tirrick or Arctic Tern

Redshank

31st July 10.30pm

             Robbie

  Here we are in the 4th week of July and the weather has turned and we now have a strong wind blowing and driving rain. Earlier in the week we finally got LBC (listed building consent) for the slates which we are going to use on the east side of the roof. Its been an extremely frustrating time as it's taken 8 weeks or so for a decision as to whether they were the right shade of blue-grey ! In fact they are exactly the same colour (as pointed out by one person from the council) as the existing slates, but the council employee that deals with listed buildings, decided it needed to be submitted to the committee. Had that person been up here and seen the roof, it would have been done by now and we'd be able to move on so to speak. In this time of cut-backs etc, I reckon it would have been cheaper for said person to have come up to have a look,  rather than having a meeting with several others around a table in the office in town. The end result of all this means its now probably too risky to start the roof this (what is supposed to be) summer. It would be around three weeks from now before we could start, so that would be mid August. Given what the weather has been like so far this year as a whole, it would be being a bit hopefully to guarantee four or five weeks of no rain and wind - can we ever expect that ! In late Spring, you can normally expect the odd days of wind and rain knowing that it's not (hopefully) going to last for long. This time of the year however the reverse is generally true. When we arrived here at the end of July 2008, the sun shone until early September, how I wish I could predict that now.

 On a happier note, we've just had another two visitors for just under two weeks. Our friend Liz was here for one week and my sister Carol was here for just under a week . Fortunately for them (and us) the weather was generally fine with virtually no rain and a few days of nice sunshine. They managed to get to see most of what they wanted although the odds of finding Orcas were stacked against me (and we didn't see one) but Liz did see a distant Neesick from Lamba Ness. They also had very good views of an otter down at the shore feeding (pictures later).

  The week before last, Brydon asked me to lead a walk for him on Hermaness with a group of 8 Belgians. I was a little apprehensive to start with as I was told that their English wasn't too good and I obviously don't speak any Flemish. As it turned out I needn't have worried and things went very well apart from at the start of the walk - and until we got to the cliffs - as there was a lot of low cloud. How do you show people thousands of Gannets if you can't see them because of the fog ? Thankfully by the time we reached the cliffs the fog/low cloud had blown through and we had a really nice walk............

at least there were a few Puffins around

 Looking south from the northern end of Hermaness

Muckle Flugga

  The main event on Unst this past two weeks has been the now annual Unst Fest. Unst Fest is a mixture of live music, games, competitions, a sailing regatta, Yoal races, food & drink, a carnival, heritage and traditional activities and exhibitions etc. In fact, there is so much you'd need to look at the Unst Fest website for a much, much more detailed list of events. Below are just a few pictures from one or two of the events I went to.......

The 42ft long Canadian Canoe 'Spirit Dancer'

 136 people doing the 'Palais Glide' *

'Welly Wanging' competion

Yoal Racing

(* The world record for the number of folk doing the Palais Glide, was set on Unst in 2009 with 196 participants)

  Festivities apart, we did get to see a bit of wildlife around Unst. Along with Puffins and Gannets at Hermaness, Seals at Haroldswick we had a number of Otter sightings. I had a few minutes watching a male fishing at Haroldswick and I also saw one several times across the field from out house. The best view though was of one fishing and then eating its catch down at the shore. Despite the wind not being in our favour and it knowing we were somewhere up-wind of it, it carried on, although slightly wary. However, I managed to get downwind of it and got these pictures................

and the one at Haroldswick............

and one of a Gannet at Hermaness..............

 On Wednesday (18th) my sister Carol left for home from Sumburgh, so after dropping her off and saying our goodbyes, I went up to Sumburgh Head for an hour. Due to the ongoing building work for the new centre, half of the top of the head is closed off to the public. This has resctricted the options a bit for Puffin photographs as far as I'm concerned. For instance, when the wind is blowing from a certain direction, the birds fly in a particular way etc so, there is an option for more chance of success for getting say, birds in flight. On this occasion I spent most of the time just watching them, but I did see an immature bird (last years) and also several Pufflings at their burrow entrance.........

 A yearling Puffin

A Puffling which will leave very shortly

     Robbie

  Here we are at the end of the first week of July and the weather has changed yet again and we are now back into a cool north easterly  airflow. Over the last week we've had very little wind and for several days no wind at all, unfortunately it hasn't been particularly nice. It's been very grey with low cloud or mist for much of last week which in turn has brought out the midges (or midgets as I call them) .

  Due to the really dull weather, I've not done much of either birding or photography but this has taken away any excuses not to do jobs around the place. Just over a week ago I did spend an hour up at Skaw as there was some nice breakers coming in and this in turn was bringing in food for feeding Common Gulls. The light was rubbish but I still took a few pictures anyway..........

Common Gulls

 Also at Skaw were several families of Eider Ducks feeding fairly close to the shore. I've learnt  that if I sit down on the beach, after their initial wariness, they will soon come back and carry on feeding - they do have a choice as they could move to either end of the beach. It seems quite harsh for the ducklings however as they are constantly being bombarded by breaking waves and going under only to bob back up like little brown corks...................

  On the migrant bird front, there's not been much about apart from a Black Kite which first appeared a couple of weeks ago on Mainland (assuming it was the same one) and then spent a few days around Unst before going to Fetlar and then back to Mainland. A sign that the year is moving on was a group of 6 Whimbrel moving around Lamba Ness. My first thoughts were they were a family party, but then was told they'd more likely be departing non-breeders :(

  One evening I was looking down towards the shore and spotted a feeding Otter, fetching my bins' and Rona (in that order) we headed down to the beach. It came out on the rocks at the far end of the beach with quite a large eel and as the wind was in our favour we managed to get quite close - much to Rona's delight.

  I can only assume that it is due to high tides at the moment, that the seals at Haroldswick are hauling out very close to the shore and, on occasions, even coming up on to the beach. Like a lot of other situations,  if you roll carefully to a stop in a car,  they'll stay put and you can have some really nice views. Doing this the other day, I was taking some photographs but hadn't noticed a car pull up behind me; as there wasn't much space for cars to pass, I decided to move on. Then as I moved off, their door opened and the driver got out and needless to say the seals also moved off...................

  Common Seals

  A similar thing happened about the same time concerning an Otter. I just happened to be driving along the north shore road when I noticed an Otter in the water. The wind was totally wrong but I decided to pull up the car just see if could see any distinguishing markings (such as the female with a big scar on her nose). The otter came out onto some rocks that are used regularly for eating prey on, sensed I was there, but wasn't too concerned. Shortly after, a car pulled up behind me and they sat there with the engine running, time to move on I thought. Driving along the road some 3 hundred yards or so, I parked again and watched the 'otter watchers'. They got out (leaving both the boot and car door open) and sat down on the shore - by this time the otter had gone several hundred yards off-shore - no surprise there then. The otter then swam back in my direction and came out of the water and in to a holt not far from where I was sitting.

  We're now seeing lots of fledgling birds around - Meadow Pipits, Wheatears, Redshank, Curlew and Oystercatcher etc. Most of the adults will sit and give out an alarm call from a wall or fence post and some, such as Oystercatchers and Redshanks, will fly around like something possessed telling all of the world a predator is around. While I don't like to cause too much anxiety to the birds, I will if the occasion arises take a couple of shots from the car as I pass by. Spending too long can distract the parents and its at times like this that a GBB Gull or Bonxie could drop in and take a youngster..............

,

 Curlew

 Lapwing

 Oystercatcher chick

 Oystercatcher

 Male Wheatear

  On one of the many misty days, I went up to Skaw for a quick beach walk; arriving at the end of the road, I immediately saw a Gannet siting on a rock in the burn. The bird looked in good form so I can only assume it came down in the fog during the night and couldn't get out due to the grassy banks and a net across the lower half of the bridge (which is to stop the sheep wandering up stream when the water is low). Taking a few pictures, I then lifted the net so it could swim downstream and back to sea; this it didn't find too easy due to the rocks in the stream, so I decide to help it on its way. Remembering that Gannets will 'go' for the eyes, I carefully grabbed it at the top of the neck behind its head and held its wings together with my other arm. Releasing it back in to the sea, it certainly didn't feel skinny or have any injuries, so hopefully it will survive...............

  Living within a stones throw of the seashore, we don't eat nearly enough fresh seafood (although we do get to have Salmon fairly frequently). During the last week, we've had some really low tides which has exposed the rocks just off from the beach. So, a couple of days ago, I went a collected some fresh Mussels for supper - and very nice they were too :) There are a lot of Mussel farms around Shetland and the other week when I went across to Uyea Isle, I learnt quite a bit about them. From what I gather, there's quite a lot of luck involved as they 'self seed' so to speak - the Mussel eggs are floating around in the sea and then attach themselves to what ever is suitable. It is believed that some of the Mussels here around Shetland could have originated from around the Outer Hebrides. It can take two years for farmed Mussels to be a size suitable for sale, so I reckon some of the ones we ate the other night could have been 8 or 10 years old as they were quite large. As I was eating one, I became aware of some sand or grit in my mouth, upon investigation I found a tiny white pearl between 4 and 5mm across - something I'd certainly not bargained for..................

 

.............. but we won't be getting rich on this though !

      Robbie