One season ends, another starts

  Well here we are on the 1st September and summer seems to have gone and the autumnal wind and rain has arrived with some vengeance. I'm sure that a few folk would disagree, but I don't think it's been a bad one at all. The main concern for us was that we wanted it dry and relatively windless for doing the roof and, as I mentioned in my last post, we did alright on that front. All in all, it took 4 weeks to do the roof and another week to finish the guttering, downspouts and some re-pointing.

  On the 31st July, we fitted the last of the old slates on the front of the house and as we were doing it, I had the added bonus of a garden tick (now at 122 species) in the form of a Common Kestrel which, by the look of it (wet and tired), had just arrived in off of the sea....

Kestrel at Ordaal

  A few nights later, I had my first evening walk of the year up to Hermaness. It didn't look like it was going to be a fantastic sunset, but never the less, it's still great to get up there in the evening. Basically, by the time I'd got to the end of the board walk, it was long before the sun was nearing the horizon and in to cloud at that. Below are five pics from the evening...

Drumming Snipe

Displaying Bonxie

'Clear to Land'

'Evening Stroll'

  The last one could be titled - 'The Sand Eel was this big, honest'

  The following morning was a cracking morning so I decided to spend the morning up at Hermaness and go 'down the banks' to one of the gannet nest sites. Despite the at times, rather precarious route down, it is well worth it just to sit just a few yards from them and to be accepted - as long as the 'circle of fear' is taken in to account (the minimum distance at which an animal etc will be at ease). I could quite easily spend all day down there with them, but unfortunately reality always kicks in and it usually ends up as just a couple of hours......

 

  I was back down there again a few days later hoping to get some shots of gugas (young Gannets) being fed by their parents. There was quite a size variation between the young, some still small and very reptilian like, others were quite large and covered in down, and even some where showing signs of feathers. I did get some photos, everything seamed perfect - light, angle etc; however, once home I was disappointed to see that all of the images were ruined by heat haze. I knew it was quite warm by the number of panting gannets and their young, but I hadn't noticed it over the distance of only 15 or 20 feet.

  By the middle of August, the first sign of a bit of autumnal migration was showing with a Green Sandpiper at Lamab Ness, shortly followed by a Shelduck there and also a Knot. On the 11th of the month, I saw my first Minke of the 'summer' off of Lamba Ness and on several days saw up to three feeding just off the headland. It coincided with huge numbers of Gannets fishing along that bit of coast (presumably on the same fish as the Minke) and the Gannets were also closely followed by the piratical Bonxies who constantly harried the Gannets for their catch......

 Minke Whale

'Unfair odds'

Seconds before the Gannet disgorges its fish

  On the 22nd August, I had a couple of 'spare' (?) hours (and it was a nice day) so I thought I'd go 'down the banks' again. I'm now sorted as to what I carry down in my smaller camera bag (+ a lens case on my belt) which makes the scramble down a lot easier. I'd rather not have to take a tripod down but I do find the ease of using the long lens for close-ups worth the extra weight. Unfortunately on this occasion the midges were a pain but this time I was using 'Smidge that midge' repellant which worked a treat (I've run out of 'Skin so soft'). Just a few more Gannet pics........

   On the bird migration front, a few things are now starting to come through - although a bit less than down on Mainland (Shetland). We've had quite a good passage of Black-tailed Godwits, with 34 today (1st Sept) just along from Ordaal. There was also a Med' Gull in Baltasound which Mike (Pennington) found and Brydon and I found a Greenish Warbler at Skaw (there have been 8 or 10 so far this autumn in Shetland).....

A record shot of the Med' Gull on the Houb

Greenish Warbler at Skaw

  On the 28th Aug, early on in the evening, I had an aurora alert come through to my phone. I didn't have much hope as it had been quite cloudy, it was a bit breezy and also there was a half moon. Looking out around 11pm it looked promising so I decided to head off up north to Lamba Ness. The cloud had cleared a bit, but the moon was quite bright - it didn't look too promising. However on arriving at the end, there was a nice green glow to the north and there was some shelter from the wind by the old RAF buildings. Setting the camera up and locking the remote release on, I retired to the car to watch the northern sky. Glancing around to the east I could see a fantastic light show of long green 'tentacles' reaching down towards the bright moon - what a shot that would make! It took several minutes to retrieve the camera and set it up again in a different spot by which time unfortunately it had subsided a little, hey ho.....

  The last one looks like it's been manipulated in 'Photoshop' or similar, ie taken in black and white and then selectively coloured; it hasn't, that's almost straight out of the camera.

      Robbie

Busy, busy times....

  Here we are at the end of July, the breeding season is all but over for most birds up here (Gannets will be the last to fledge - in September). I knew that once we started the roof that it was going to be a very busy time with some long, hard days. Having been in the building trade for nigh on 40 years, 12 or 14 hours doing manual work is a hard day and those that dismiss it, probably have never done anything like it.

  Once the scaffolding was up, we stripped the back of the roof over two days.  We started replacing any rotten sarking boards, then re-nailing all of the boarding and as we progressed, we re-felted the roof. Once this was done, the lead flashings to the skews (gables/copings) were fitted and then the brackets for the new cast iron guttering were fixed. 'Behind the scenes' so to speak, I'd also been punching nail holes in the new slates (over 4000 of them) and loading up the scaffold ready to put them on the roof. At the end of each day I'd move the 'cripples' and planks up the roof ready for the next lift and then load up the planks with slates ready for a good start the following morning. I have to say that we were very lucky with the weather. For most of the time when we were working on the back roof (the eastern side of the house) the wind was in the west. Also during that time, we only lost one day due to wet weather.

  We were pretty confident the back would go well once we got in to our stride, the front we thought, would be a different matter. On the back we were allowed to use new slates, on the front however, we would have to use slates we'd saved from both sides. These slates would then have to have the old rusty nails removed and, as was the case with most of them, be re-drilled for fixing. During the slating of the front, fortunately for us, the wind changed direction to the eastern side. While mostly this was welcomed, for two days we wished it was on the same side as us. This was because it was two of the warmest days of the year when the temperature reached the dizzy heights of over 20 degrees C. It gave me pounding headaches and Andrew really bad hay-fever, so much so, that on one of the days we finished at 3pm. The warm weather can stay down south as far as we're concerned! 

  The cast iron guttering was ordered from a company down in Northamptonshire and I must say they did a cracking job as far as delivery times, customer service etc. My only reservation however, was getting it delivered to Shetland due to the delivery cost (many because of the weight). This was overcome by having it delivered to Aberdeen (which meant we'd get free delivery) and then get Northwards to bring it to Lerwick. Also, knowing the nature of cast iron guttering, I had concerns about breakages but thankfully there were none - phew!

  At the time of writing (July 28th) we have one more 'lift' to slate to reach the ridge - which hopefully we'll do tomorrow. All in all, it's been less than a month to do most of the roof although we still have some pointing to do and other 'bit's and pieces'; I've also got the guttering on the front to put up this week at some stage. Once that's done, the scaffolding can be cleared of the remaining old slates and then it can come down. That will be a special moment for Ordaal as it will be the first time in over 70 years that the house has had guttering. The lack of it has been one of the main sources of damp in the house which, hopefully will be greatly lessened.

 Stripping the back roof

 Starting to re-slate

Half done (the 'cripples are the triangles with planks on)

The back completed (minus guttering)

 Some of the rot in the front sarking

 It's hard to believe it's July !

Just a few of the old slates to be 'processed'

  Away from 'house work', I've not had much time to 'get out and about'. During the last week of June, we had a much welcomed visit by my sister and some of her family for a week which I really enjoyed. I did get to go to Hermaness for a couple of visits, one on my own down the cliffs and one with Clive (my brother in law). I think Hermaness is a really special place and as far as I'm concerned is one of the the wildlife spectacles in the UK to savour, smell and 'drink in the view'. So personally, when someone stands up there virtually speechless, taking it all in, is a great moment - such as it was for Clive.

...... one from 'down the cliffs'

  ............and from the day there with Clive...

  Despite the really hot weather that has had to have been endured down south, we have only had a few nice days or evenings over the last month, so below are a few pics of those moments....

Sunset over Flugga from Saxavord

Baltasound sunset 11.15 pm 24th July

'Dollar Mist' over Baltasound from Ordaal 10pm 25th July

  The main interest migrant wise around Unst recently has been the influx of Common Crossbills to Shetland which has recently been followed by the arrival of two (possibly three) Two-barred Crossbills which were found by Brydon in Haligarth. and over 15 or so throughout the islands......

Two-barred Crossbill

  On the odd sunny, calm evening it was a treat to watch the Arctic Terns down at the shore fishing and doing the occasional food pass. It's not always easy to capture as it relies on the wind and light being just right in order to have them facing towards me at the shore at any particular time of day....

Arctic Terns

  The injured Common Crane is still surviving - although it it will have problems later in the autumn - and has now spent the last month in the same field on the south side of Baltasound. There are several opinions as to what should be done - if anything - regarding the future welfare of the bird. One side suggests it should be caught and maybe sent down to Slimbridge where there is a captive breeding programe - with a view releasing the offspring back in to the wild. The other is to just let nature take its course which would mean the bird starving once the autumn and winter arrives. My view is that if it can be used in the breeding programme, then that's fine, but I'd rather it didn't just go to a zoo and become an exhibit.......

Common Crane in Baltasound

              Robbie

  Well yet again it's been a long time since my last post and it's certainly not that I've lost interest. I have been finding it difficult to find the time and sit and spend several hours going through what we've been doing and what's been seen around here. So, what I'll have to do this time is just a brief run-down of the last month with pictures rather than an extended story which some may find even a tad boring.

  The day after I arrived home (26th April) I traveled with Sula down to Lerwick where she was singing at the Shetland Music Festival. She sang solo and also several duets with a couple of her friends. They all did well, getting silver 'merits' for the duets and Sula getting a gold for her solo performance. The day after, I started work again on the house which is why there's not been much blog activity recently.

  On the 5th May, my first Arctic Tern of the year returned to the shore at Ordaal and was a really welcome sight and gave the feeling that spring had finally returned........

  For a few days after the 7th, we had up to four Tree Sparrows in the garden daily - which made a nice change to the ever present House Sparrows......

Tree Sparrow

  A few days later I had a trip to Lerwick and on my return home, went and saw the pair of Garganey which had been on the pool near the school.............

Male Garganey

  On the scarcer side of things, during May there were a number of Red-backed Shrikes around, including this lovely male I saw over at Haroldswick for a few days........

Male Red-backed Shrike

  Below are a few  pictures of some other migrants that past through Unst during May and also some residents......

 Common Sandpiper at Skaw

 Cuckoo at Valyie

 Grey-headed Wagtail at Skaw

 Marsh Warbler at Skaw

 Roosting Blackcaps in Baltasound

Wood Sandpiper at Inner Skaw

Female Red-backed Shrike at Norwick

  Apart from working on the house - inside and out - I have done 3 day trips guiding for Brydon,
the first being a joint one taking a group of BP workers on a 'team building' walk on Hermaness (in not so nice weather), the second was an individual from Qatar and the third was a group of 4 as Brydon was unwell so I stood in at (very) short notice.

  Also around the middle of May, a Common Crane turned up at Haroldswick. It soon became apparent that the bird had injured itself (possibly on wires) as it seemed to be unable to fly - its left wing hung downwards. Despite this, the bird seemed to be thriving, walking all over the north side of Setters Hill. Last week the bird disappeared for a couple of days and then reappeared in Baltasound - several miles away.........

Common Crane and Lapwing at Haroldswick

  Towards the end of May, we all went over to Fetlar for the night to see a folk group called Vamm fronted by Shetland fiddler Catriona Macdonald. All I can say is that it was a cracking evening. On the way over in the afternoon, the ferry passed close-by to a lovely summer plumaged Great Northern Diver. For some reason there has been quite a few close inshore this year - Mike P had over 80 at Muness earlier on in the Spring.......

Great Northern Diver

  Probably the best Spring migrant of the year so far has been a cracking male Woodchat Shrike that Mike and Margaret Pennington found not far from 'Bobby's Bus Stop' . It was a lovely bird and one that quite a few people got to see - despite the fact it didn't stay for long. I even got it on the 'garden list (119) which was a bit extreme as I put a telescope adapter on my 500 + 2x converter which made it a 100x magnification telescope - extreme to say the least !.....

 Woodchat Shrike (not taken from the garden!)

  At the end of May I had a visit from my friend Graham Goddard who stayed for a week. Graham is a cracking photographer and seeing the photographs on his website confirms this. Unfortunately I didn't have much time out with him this time as I was pretty busy with one thing and another but we did have a very enjoyable day on Hermaness.

  I'd been shown the start of the cliff path down to one of the Gannet colony's a while back but had never gone down there. One reason was timing and the other was I didn't want to tackle it for the first time on my own. So with a bit of encouragement from Graham, I descended down and to be quite honest, I've done a lot more scary routes years ago in the mountains of The Lakes and also Scotland. However, for the reason of safety of others, I'm not going to either describe the route down, or show any pictures - just the birds and the view taken on the 1st visit and another visit last week on my own........

       Robbie

'Off Island' pt 2

  On the 6th April, we continued our extended trip 'off island' to stay in north Gloucestershire; Catriona and Sula staying at Moreton and Rona and I staying at Longbrough for most of the time - with Catriona taking trips to Oxford and London in between.

  A couple of days later, Rona and I took the almost obligatory trip to the Cotswold Falconry Centre at Batsford nr Moreton in Marsh. When we lived three miles away, it was a regular place to visit with the girls and on the odd occasion they would even help out. Geoff and his team do a sterling job with both the flying displays and also the breeding program they have there and so is well worth a visit. After we'd watched one of the displays, Geoff invited Rona and I over to his house to see one of the recently hatched Yellow Headed Caracara  chicks. Both Rona and I learnt a lot from that visit and Rona even got to feed and hold the chick - something she was really delighted with, so thanks again Geoff. One other 'treat' was to see - and hear - another chick starting to breakout from the egg, the faint 'cheeps' clearly heard if you held the egg close to the ear.

  Two days later, it was Sula's turn for a visit. They flew all sorts of raptors from falcons to vultures and hawks to owls.The highlight for me was seeing the magnificent Snowy Owl in free flight, it brought back to me as clear as day, the one Brydon and I saw on Unst a few years ago. Geoff asked me again if we'd like to go with him to feed the chicks - to which Sula jumped at the chance. The egg had now hatched and not to be out done by Rona, she held two chicks in her hand at once!.....

One of my favourite birds from Batsford

 While we were in the area, I called in to the car sales centre where some years ago, we bought our Audi. My dear old Suby' is starting to cost too much each year to get it through an MOT (the engine is still sound however) so I thought I'd have a look around and see what was available. It probably seems a crazy idea to buy a car down here, but as we'd had good service before, I thought it better than going to someone I didn't know. I was very pleasantly surprised to discover he could get hold of exactly what I was after and would have it there the next day for me to look at. Viewing it the next day, I decided to buy it, but unfortunately I wouldn't be able to have it until the following week - as he would put two new tyres on it, plus full MOT and a clean etc. The next decision would be whether to drive the family back to Unst, stay at home for a couple of days and then travel back, or return south by train from Aberdeen and have another week in the Cotswolds? We made the decision that I'd drive us back north to the ferry (via an over night stay near Dumfries) and then Catriona and the girls would take the 'northboat' and I'd head south again by train after an overnight stay in Aberdeen.

  Sometimes returning back to somewhere where you have long, fond memories of (such as a special holiday) is a bad idea, as things are often never like they were. It is the same for me returning south to where I was brought up. I must emphasize I love meeting up with old friends and relations etc, but the place has changed and much of it not for the good - I don't have any 'pangs' in the heart for the place, that's certain. One major 'gripe' I have is with the planting of so called 'shelter belts' in fields along the side of roads. The Cotswolds are certainly not in need of trees, what the Cotswolds are in need of are the  traditional grasslands of yester-year. Driving around this last week, I've seen miles of shelter belts which in a few years time will block out many of the very views that the Cotswold Hills are famous for - maybe living on Unst I've become too use to 'big skies'? Also in the last few years there have been hundreds of new houses built in the area, of which, quite a few are still unoccupied. One other very noticeable things, is how bad the roads are. In just over two weeks, I've driven from Unst in the north to the New Forest in the south and totaled up around two thousand miles, and without doubt Gloucestershire's roads are the worst by a long way.........

The village where I 'grew up'

 The two weeks down south seemed to fly by and in no time at all it was time to drive back north to Aberdeen with the family with - as I said earlier - an over night stop north-west of Dumfries. The following day (which was a Sunday) I said my goodbyes to the family as they headed off on the 'northboat' on a sunny but cool evening. I then headed off to find a room for the night - the first stop being a Travel Lodge not far from the railway station. There were  rooms available, but for some reason I couldn't reserve it at the desk, but had to phone the central reservation office who would then send the booking to the guy on the desk via his pc. The room was comfortable (good for the price considering it was the town centre)  but overlooked the high street - which became quite noisy later on in the evening. After a reasonable nights sleep, I caught the train south again for a long day travelling back to the Cotswolds. Even though I had been offered the use of  a car, I declined as I thought the exercise might do me some good. Over the next 5 days I reckon I walked a least 30 miles and most of it was in fine, sunny weather. There were a few spring migrants around - Willow Warblers and Chiffchaffs, a number of Blackcaps and also a few Redstarts. I also saw a number of Red Kites which, only a few years ago, would have been a 'mega' rarity in that part of the world. I was told that not far south from there, during the winter, there was a roost of over 90 birds - most of them would have probably originated from the Chiltern population.

  Finally, Saturday morning arrived and I would be able to pick up my 'new' car. Unfortunately due to an oversight on my part, I couldn't get my old Suby' insurance transferred to the new one until Monday morning - so I wouldn't be driving it around over the weekend :(

 The next day (Sunday) I was going to have a day out with two good friends Martin and Tim. We were off to Greenham Common near Newbury, to look for Dartford Warblers and Woodlarks. There are supposed to be around 8 or 9 pairs of Dartfords' there (we've seen them there before) but unfortunately, despite numerous hours spent looking, we couldn't locate any. We were luckier with the Woodlarks and saw and heard several. Despite the lack of one of the 'target' species, I thoroughly enjoyed the day in good weather and with good company........

A 'record shot' of one of the Greenham Common Woodlarks

 The following day was spent - driving ! Before heading north, I still had a few things to do - now I had wheels - and also to say a few 'goodbyes' to friends.

 Well, the day had arrived which, to be honest, I'd been looking forward to for several weeks - the journey north. The 'northboat' was on Weds night which gave me a couple of options. One was to drive all day and get as far north as I could; spend the night somewhere and then have a few hours near Inverness (in the hope that the dolphins were at Channory Point) and then going back to Aberdeen for the evening ferry. The other option was to have a steady drive to stay with our friends again near Dumfries and then drive up to Aberdeen the following day. Looking at the weather forecast, it wasn't good for Wednesday morning (heavy rain) so I decided to go for the second option.

  Apart from a very slow start at the M5/M6 junction, the journey to the Borders went very smoothly and fairly quickly. The car went well and, unlike when I drive the Audi, I didn't get any cramps in my legs which was a much welcomed bonus. By half twelve, I was sitting beside the river in Dumfries watching scores of Sand Martins and also two pairs of Goosanders fishing in the river. All of a sudden there was one heck of a commotion being made by a hundred or so gulls - in Shetland I would immediately think 'raptor' - and sure enough, there was an Osprey soaring around above them. The rest of the day was spent 'relaxing' at our friends house.

  The following morning I awoke to pouring rain, I felt I'd made the right decision about not going further north and now could take my time on the last leg. The woodlands around the house have a number of Red Squirrels and as I was loading my car, one appeared on one of the purpose-built feeders by the house. Despite the rather grim weather I took a few pictures - just for the record. As you can see from the picture, it has a lot of fur missing, this is apparently due to a small mite that lives in their drays and affects some more than others and to different degrees........

  The journey went well and by Stirling the weather had cleared up - I think the rain must have come through earlier - so I could have gone further north after all, hey ho. It was then a few miles south of Stonehaven on the A90 that things went exceedingly pear-shaped. I was driving on the duel carriageway at around 70mph when a hen pheasant flew up from the verge on my side of the road. It appeared to then get blown back across in front of me and then 'BANG' , it hit my side of the windscreen and smashing the glass. Fortunately the glass was laminated so it didn't fall in, but lots of small shards of glass went flying around the car and so I was really thankful that I'd was wearing my sun glasses ( I did get a few very small cuts on my hands however). It happened all so quick that even if I'd time to break, it would have been too dangerous as there were cars fairly close behind me. Pulling over on to the wide grass verge, I then had time to collect my thoughts and ring the AA. To cut a long story short, they said that as it was an accident rather than a breakdown, I would have to pay to be taken to Aberdeen. When I said I had to be there for that nights ferry, they agreed to cover the costs to the port. My theory was that they'd looked at our membership record and seen we'd only called them out a couple of times in over ten years and had made their money out of us. It wasn't too long before a very pleasant guy arrived to transport me to Aberdeen and where I could leave the car in the terminal car park prior to being loaded on the Northlink ferry..........

Oh dear !!! (or words to that effect)

 The rest of the day and night went smoothly (including the crossing) although I didn't sleep very well. The following morning I called in at a windscreen replacement garage in Lerwick and was told it would take around ten days to get a replacement through an insurance company, blast! As I had a car load of things, I didn't want to leave the car in town; so I made the decision to drive carefully back to Unst - which was extremely hard work due to having to peer around the smashed section of glass and focus on the road, not the glass. Finally at around 11am, I arrived home - it was good to be back :)

    Robbie