I just looked at the date of my last post and it was 26th April ...... I don't believe it!!!!!! So, rather than spend a week writing up this next blog, I'll put up picture highlights from the last few months with a few paragraphs thrown in for good measure.

April

  The last few days of April produced one or two nice birds, the first being a drake Garganey on Haroldswick Pools and then closely followed by a cracking male Snow Bunting along the shore road by Buness House.........

  On the 29th, I took a drive down the Lamba Ness road with the thought of maybe a Wheatear or two and as I crossed the little causeway towards the end, I also had a thought (or more like wishful thinking) of a Shorelark. Well yes, you've guessed it, only a hundred yards further on and I found one on the grass feeding with Skylarks - what a cracker !.......

Shorelark at Lamba Ness

  May 

  The Spring migration this year seemed very late compared to some of the other years and also the numbers and variety of species seemed less. Several  'highlights' were a Hoopoe on the road back from Skaw one morning, a summer plumage Spotted Redshank on the airport  pool, and later in the month, I got to see the very obliging Corncrake on South Mainland.........

  At the end of the month, two of the small races of Canada Goose turned up on Unst, firstly a possible 'parvipes' at Haroldswick, followed by a possible 'interior' at Ordaal in Baltasound......

 'Parvipes' ?

'Interior' ?

  At the end of the month, I had a trip to Hermaness and while its principally Gannets that I go there for, I'm happy to photograph anything. On this occasion it was a displaying Bonxie on the way up, a Shetland Wren gathering nest material and a Herring Gull stealing discarded fish from around the Gannetry...........

June

  During the first 10 days of the month, there were a few good birds turning up and in particular, there were a few cracking male Red-backed Shrikes around with at least 7 in the northern half of the island........

Red-backed Shrike at Northdale

  and this Turtle Dove stayed around Baltasound for several days...........

  On the 7th, I was driving along the north shore road of Baltasound when I had a big surprise in finding a cracking 'Queen' Eider almost on the beach by Buness House. Not only was I able to get some quite nice pictures, I got it on the 'garden list' too :)   ..........

'Queen Eider'

A 'Queen' with a female Common Eider for comparison

  On the 10th, I got a message from Brydon about a sighting, which for me, is well up there for being one of the 'birds of the year'...... it was a Bee-eater in Haligarth. However, the bird proved to be a bit elusive - and very flighty and so I only got a brief view. It wasn't until the following morning when I was in Haligarth again , that I thought I heard the call. I decided to approach the bird from inside the wood using the trees as cover. This time I was very lucky and got pretty close and had a cracking view of the bird.......

Bee-eater in Haligarth

 July

  July was a very busy month and not just with work around the home. With both of the girls away in Italy with the Unst youth club, Catriona and I had a lovely few days in North Mainland.......

The coast at Breiwick

Fethaland, North Mainland

  Also during the month there was the annual Unst Fest - which was recently voted the best community project (in the whole of Scotland) in the annual Herald Awards. At home I continued working on the living room and on the outside we re-slated the porch roof and also replaced some lead flashing at the back of the house.

  As far as the wildlife goes, I had a couple of visits to Hermaness in the daytime and also several before sunset - it's a magical place any time of the day or night :)

Out Stack

  Right at the end of the month, I had one of four day trips to Fetlar leading for my friend Brydon's Shetland Nature tour company. When I'm due to meet the guests on the island, I will usually go over on the early ferry to suss things out and get a feel for what's about. On this occasion, I spent an hour parked up at the Loch of Funzie, to see if there were any Phalaropes around the loch feeding. At that time there were no Phals' but I had an almost continuous display of drumming snipe overhead. (The drumming sound is created two tail feathers vibrating as the bird dives through the air) They are certainly not an easy bird to get in flight - especially so when displaying and I'm using a 500mm lens - so I was very pleased to get a number of sharp images, the one below is my favourite. I also had one of the regular Redthroated Divers which are seen on the loch, take off and fly straight over my head - and was too close ! .....

August

  One of my favourite sights and memories (of many) from each summer, are the calm, still evenings when the tirricks hunt over the grass fileds by our house at sunset (and long after) for insects. They must have amazing eyesight as its frequently almost dark before they depart.......

  ... and this was a lovely evening looking north along Valla Field with Collaster below..........

 One August event I look forward to on Unst, is the regular occurrence of Minke Whales off of Lamba Ness as they feed in the tidal race around the headland. I saw several this year but the conditions weren't ideal as often there was a sea swell which makes then a little more difficult to pick up......

Minke Whale

  Despite there being a few of the commoner waders starting to pass through Unst (godwits, knot, etc etc) I would be in big trouble if I didn't mention one of the big events to take place on the island during the month and that was the first Shetland Reel Music Festival which took place over the weekend of 14th - 16th of August. 

  It was even more 'special' because both of the girls were taking part, either solo or with the Baltasound School group. There were a lot of acts from far and wide including Livingston Taylor, Jim Salestrom (who used to play in both John Denver and Dolly Parton's bands) and Daniel Duke and Lisa Ward - who were both on 'The Voice', plus many more. 

  Sula and Rona - a long with the the other Baltasound kids performed on the Main Stage on the Saturday lunchtime, quickly followed by Sula doing a half hour set in the 'Crew room'. On the Sunday afternoon, Sula then did another half an hour solo on the Main Stage. It was rounded off by her doing a duet with Daniel Duke on the Main Stage in the early evening.

  The whole event generally went well - despite the live internet feed dropping from time to time on Friday evening and as parents of two of the performers we were justifiably proud :)      ............

 Sula with Jim Salestrom

 Tom, Sula and Rona

 Baltasound School

Sula in the 'Crew Room'

Main Stage

Sula singing with Daniel Duke

  It was quite a surprise for me to see late on the 16th August, my first aurora of the autumn. I drove down to the end of the track at Saxavord for a view over towards Flugga and Out Stack. Unfortunately there was quite a strong wind blowing and even with the tripod and camera at ground level, it still cause camera shake :(   .......

Muckle Flugga and Out Stack from Saxavord

  and at the end of the month, it even showed through the light of a bright moon at home...

  The last week of the month saw a few nice migrants start arriving around the island; one nice find for me, was a Greenish Warbler at Norwick followed by an Icterine Warbler at Haroldswick. This was then followed by a Melodious Warbler at Norwick found by Brydon and I......

Greenish Warbler

Icterine Warbler

Melodious Warbler

Lesser Whitethroat

September

  Generally, September was pretty good with a few nice birds around, both common and less common............

Western Bonelli's Warbler at Burrafirth

Longbilled Dowitcher on Yell

Redbacked Shrike at Burrafirth

Otter family at Haroldswick

Rainbow over the Ordale Road

Bonxies causing a Gannet to disgorge its catch

...... and a 'Penguin' at Hermaness !

  It's now Christmas Eve, so I'll do the last couple of months over the 'festive' period and will post before the end of the month....... so have a good one, what ever you're doing.

 

 Best Wishes from 'The Island Above All Others'

Robbie

Its been a while :)

  As the saying goes something like this 'time and tide stands by for no man', it certainly hasn't over the last few months. It's certainly been a winter of weather - although not much in the way of cold, clear days - we've had a lot of rain and also quite a lot of wind and gales. As its been quite a long time since the last post, its been quite difficult to remember everything that's happened since the ends of last year - but I'll try. One of the things that hasn't made it easy, is the way I now edit and save my pictures. I used to do most of the converting, editing and saving using one program and these were saved on the pc's hard disc; this just ate up the space and slowed the computer down a lot. I would then, every so often, back the files up to an external hard drive. Now, I use two programs and back up the files straight away to the external drives which I find quite tedious at times.

  Anyway, enough of that, what about the last few months ?

 Over the Christmas period, we had several couples staying in the cottage - here - the first were a Chinese couple and these were  followed by Jason and Marie who stayed for several nights which included New Years Eve. The only downside to their stay, was that on the evening before they left, the shower in the cottage decided to leak through the ceiling in to the living room below ! We'd decided to replace the shower anyway as it was looking pretty 'tired' and were waiting for an opportunity to do it, now I had to !

  So, very soon after they had left, I started to take out the old shower. Within no time at all, I could see why it had leaked - dodgy DIY again ! The shower try had only about 2 mm of silicone sealing against the plasterboard so this, combined with the fact the whole floor 'bounced' was the reason the water leaked out. I also discovered that both the shower tray and the floor were around 5/8th inch out of level - in two feet !!!!!  Anyway, apart from the fact it took almost 3 weeks to get the replacement sent to Shetland (well were are a LONG way from mainland UK aren't we ?) we now have a nice new shower which hopefully, won't leak.

  Early in January, we one or two nice evenings with an almost full moon. I headed out one evening and took a few pictures and below are two.....

 Skaw by moonlight in B&W

The Houb, Baltasound by moonlight

   This seal below, was hauled out at Uyeasound around same time and even though it was early January, the sun had a very, very small amount of heat in it.........

Common Seal, Uyeasound

   At the end of the 1st week of Jan', we had another period of strong winds/gales. If they are westerly, I love spending some time at Westing as often it will bring in lots of feeding gulls and hopefully a less common one - on this occasion it was an immature Glaucous Gull and a week or so later an adult Iceland Gull

Glaucous Gull, Westing

Adult Iceland Gull, Westing

  With the sea throwing up lots of seaweed on to the beach, it was a good place for Turnstones, Starlings and Purple Sandpipers to forage.......

Turnstones

Purple Sandpiper

I also find it good for seeing feeding otters in this kind of weather - and from the comfort of my car :) ...

  It was also around this time we had another short power cut - something that happens from time to time and is 'just one of those things'. It didn't stop Sula from doing her homework though.......

  The drake Smew (assuming it was the same one) had returned to Loch of Snarravoe again and I wanted to try and improve on the pictures I'd taken last winter. It wasn't going to be easy as this bird - unlike some Smews - was a very nervous and flighty bird; so, just waking down to the loch side and waiting wasn't going to be an option.So with by watching its behaviour and a bit of careful 'field-craft', it was possible to get down to the loch side and lie in wait. It didn't always work though, sometimes the bird was too far out and other times it would spend the time down at the far end of the loch. Fortunately there were other birds that would pass from time to time.......

 Goldeneye

Drake Teal

Drake Smew

  Another nice bird - and one that I found - was a Black-bellied Dipper at Skaw (the Continental race of our Dipper). On the first day, it was just below the bridge at Skaw and fortunately it sat long enough for me to go back tot he car and get the camera. The second day was a bit more of a waiting game however. Relocating it some way up the burn, it took off and flew over my head and went down stream a short way. I knew where it had landed but I thought if I approached it from below, it would see me at the same time as I saw it and would possibly take flight. I decided to sit and wait as I thought it would probably fly up from the stream and hopefully land on some nearby rocks opposite. After 20 mins or so, it suddenly flew up and landed around 20ft away - and started singing. I kept very still - the bird could obviously see me, but didn't seem bothered. After a few more minutes, it flew and landed on a fence post even closer - which was just about on the minimum focusing distance for the camera (around 14ft)......

The last two are full-framed, un-cropped images

  Another nice bird that was around Skaw for a week or so during the winter was a female Black Redstart, although it was never easy to get any close pictures of......

Fm Black Redstart at Skaw

  Also in December, Jan and February there was an unseasonal Puffin out in the bay. Whether or not it was the same bird I'll never know, but it was still nice change from the ever present Shags....

 

Puffin at Skaw

 February and in to early March is the tradition time for the Up Helly Ah Viking festival throughout the isles. This year Uyeasound was on the 13th February and Norwick was a week later on the 21st. Below are few images from both events.......

 

Uyeasound

Norwick

My first visit to Hermaness of 2015 was on the 22nd February - which coincided with a fall of snow, and gave a covering to the north west corner of Hermaness.....

Gannets and snow

Despite there being a number of good auroras over the second half of the winter, frustratingly we didn't get to see many of them on Unst due to cloud cover and this one was the only one I photographed in Jan/Feb........

'Star trail' from Ordaal Jan 2015

  During March was quite busy at home but still getting an hour or so out from time to time. Some of the resident birds were showing signs of breeding and on days with out the wind, it actually felt warm ! .......

..... and the first of a few migrants......

 Chiffchaff

 Wheatear

Goldcrest

  I had another couple of trips to Hermaness during the first week of April and things were well under way for the breeding season and I must admit it was good to back there.........

  The last image is in itself a sad sight, but an all too often one. During the breeding season , I see numerous birds bringing all sorts of rubbish to their nests; bits of fishing net, ropes, banding from packing cases and bits of plastic etc. The image below is another one of those occasions which was taken last year at Saito on Hermaness. I'd seen it fly around several times and as I photographed it,  I did think at the time, that it conveyed a message. So much so, I decided to enter it in the 'Scottish Nature Photography Awards' competition - here - and was very surprised (and very pleased) to get a 2nd place in the Environmental category. Overall, Shetland did very well with the winning entry being taken on Fair Isle and both Richard Shucksmith and Rebecca Nason also getting placed in their categories.........

'Dunna Chuck Bruck'

    Robbie