Orcas and Eels

  A few weeks ago, Catriona took the girls on a walk over to Woodwick beach on the west side. Woodwick is well known for the flotsam and jetsam that gets washed up there and due to there being no nearby road (3/4 hour walk) there's an awful lot of stuff that gets washed up there and left. Below is a picture I took there a couple of years back...................

Woodwick

   As they were looking around in the rubbish thrown up by the tide, Catriona found what at first looked like a large marker pen. On closer inspection it had some writing on it with 'Reward 60 Euros' plus some other info on it. It turned out that it was an eel tag, put on by a group based in Lowestoft UK and has involved releases in Sweden, Ireland and France. This particular one was tagged in Sweden in November 2010 and dropped off the eel on Jan 9th 2011. Inside the tag is data recording electronics that records it's movements etc, incredibly they can even tell if the animal has been eaten ! In the past they have discovered that eels have been eaten by sharks and whales due to the different temperatures that have been recorded - ie a shark has a higher temperature than an eel and a whale has a higher temp' than a shark and this is recorded by the tags electronics. They tag eels from 1/2 metre in length and larger and use either internal ones or (like the one below) ones that drop off after a certain period of time...........

An eel tag

  Catriona is away for three weeks at the moment and so last Friday (15th) I drove her down to Sumburgh airport. We had little time to spend so we took a quick look around up at Sumburgh Head. There were very few Puffins around, possibly due to the windy conditions on the cliff top. I was just about to start the car, when I looked out seaward and thought I saw something, I did, it was four Orcas feeding offshore just to the east about a mile away. We had a quick look before heading back to the airport and dropping Catriona off. I then quickly returned - just in time - to see them heading north east past the head and out of sight........................

Full frame 500+1.4ex - the silver patch on the water to the right is probably fish oil

 

Quite a large crop

  The following day, Unst had its first uncommon warbler of the year turn up at Burrafirth, unfortunately for this bird - a Subalpine Warbler (eastern race) it came to an untimely end by either being hit by a car or flying in to electricity wires. It was - or would have been - depending on how you look at it, the earliest date for the species in Shetland - by one day....................

'Eastern' Subalpine Warbler (ex)

  During the day time when the kids have been at school, I've been doing jobs at home and outside. One important job this week was to get a small trench dug for a power supply for the out buildings - not an easy task given the nature of the ground below - so the electricians could connect it all up. I must say its nice to finally have power for my power tools in the workshop and also lighting at last. Another couple of jobs involves fencing. Part of this is for when I plant the willow cuttings in the next week or so and also for when a crofter brings some sheep in later in the summer. These 'woolly maggots' will eat anything including the saplings, so prevention is better than cure. The grass needs to be cropped as it's now just tussocks - not much good for anything, especially birds.

  Way back in the 80s and early 90s, I used to submit pictures to magazines and also to a photo library and from time to time, I'd get some sales and in return got a few 'beer tokens' for the effort. Nowadays I don't have the time and would happily admit there are many far better photographers than me out there so I now only sell locally. Therefore it's nice when I get contacted in person by someone for a picture to be used in a publication or whatever. This has happened a couple of times recently, one was for two pictures for a book on Puffins and the other was for an identification book on Reed and Bush Warblers. in the Helm series .................

Marsh Warbler, Northdale Unst 2009

........and a picture similar to one due to be used in a book on Puffins................

 Puffin digging a nest burrow, Sumburgh Head

  Migrant birds are still a bit thin on the ground - or in the air for that matter, although in the week I did see my first Arctic Skua of the spring over the house. I did spend an hour this week down at the shore after doing the school run as it was just after a hight tide and I was hoping for a another chance at the R B Mergansers. I did see a couple but I'm still not happy with the distance they were from me - and I was using the bag hide as well. Unfortunately they'll be moving off to breed soon, so this coming week may be my last chance for a while.........

Male Redbreasted Merganser

Below are a few other pics of birds I took this week around Unst.............

 Common Whitethroat at Skaw

 Pinkfooted Goose at Ordaal

  Redwing at Skaw

  One thing that has concerned me (and also my friend Brydon ) is the lack of sightings of otters around Unst. Until today (24th April) I'd not seen an otter around Unst for almost 3 weeks when often I could see one without trying every few days. We saw one today (Sula saw it first) fishing at Haroldswick and it was a most welcome sight. Brydon has been wondering if the spell of bad weather earlier in the year has taken its toll, lets hope not.

   This week has been quite nice as far as the weather goes, quite sunny and at times warm (10 or 12 degrees). The last couple of evenings have been rather nice with relatively little wind and lovely sunsets, many more to come hopefully !..........................

 8.45pm looking west along the shoreline at Ordaal

                      Robbie

A 'big' garden tick

  Well more of the title later. As the kids are off school, it's been a bit of a juggling act keeping them entertained, driving them to and from their friends etc. Last Friday morning (8th April) I was driving Sula south to Uyeasound to her friends house when I saw one of the Rough-legs' soaring over Caldback Hill; we watched it for a short while before heading on. I later returned with the hope of getting a few shots as it was now a gloroius sunny morning - but with a strong northwesterly wind blowing  - the bird was still around, but tending to be much higher than we've usually seen it. I managed a few shots, but even better, I had cracking views in good light as soared back and forth along the hillside above us looking for rabbits (no shortage of them here)................

Rough-legged Buzzard

Sat 9th April

  Today one of Sula's  friends with her mother was due to arrive on Shetland for a short holiday so Catriona and Sula went down to Sumburgh to pick them up. I stayed at home with Rona and had a final clean around in the cottage and Rona made up the beds etc for their stay. Whilst in the cottage givving the windows a clean, I noticed a 'head' swimming along past the jetty at the bottom of the field some hundred yards or so away. It didn't look right for a Common Seal and we don't see many Grey Seals very often over this side of the bay. Grabbing the bins', I then realized that I may have a 'big tick' for the garden list. Getting the camera I quickly went down to the shore to try and get a record shot to confirm my suspicions. By the time I reached the shore however, it had moved further down the sound towards the west end and was now a least 150 yards away. Getting a few pictures, I quickly put the on the pc to confirm the identity  of the animal, this is the first 'record shot' - a big crop............................

 

....... it was a Bearded Seal.

  I relocated it just off of Skiboul  Stores and then phoned Rory and Brydon with my suspicions.  Sure enough it was a Bearded' and it was the same one that was around a couple of weeks ago. It spent quite some time underwater - presumably feeding - showing from time to time and then disappeared completely. Later still, I re-found it on the slipway at the marina (where it was a couple of weeks ago) where we then watched it for quite some time before it was spooked by someone going out in a boat. When it did dive in the water, it didn't swim off straight away, it came across to where we (Rory, Chloe, Rona and I ) were sitting, to give us the once over; at times, being only 10ft away in the water. Sadly however not everyone was happy to see this magnificent creature lying on the slipway. One chap (who originates from some islands a bit further south than Shetland) reckoned we should throw it some fish and put a bullet in its head ! When we said it only eats crabs, his reply was 'tell that to all the other blokes'. It was precisely this sort of misguided ideas that I put up with from my dear old dad years ago. He kept racing pigeons and believed that all birds with hooked beaks were vermin and no amount of convincing would change his mind that Kestrels or Buzzards didn't take pigeons out of the sky. Anyway, here are a few pictures of the 'Beardy'.....................

 This really was a big garden tick !

  As it turned out, the plane was delayed and then, despite it reaching Sumburgh, it had to divert back to Orkney as there was thick fog down at South Mainland and couldn't land (we were in bright sunlight). Ellie and her mum  would then have to take the overnight Northlink Ferry from Orkney to Lerwick, arriving on Sunday morning at 7.30am to be picked up by Catriona and Sula.

Sunday April 10th

  As it was such a nice morning, once our friends had unpacked we decided to take a walk to Hermaness NNR in the north west corner of the island. I love Hermaness and could spend days up there just watching the seabirds. The walk up was a very pleasant one in fairly warm sunshine. There were a few Bonxies around and also a few calling Golden Plover up on the hills. Just as we approached the cliffs, I was about to say to our friends that there probably wouldn't be any Puffins back yet, when Sula - who was a short way in front - shouted out 'Puffins !' They certainly seemed to be a little earlier than last year and there were also quite a few - thankfully.........

Taking a rest

 

You must be joking!

 

'Mug shot'

 

Gannets 'allo-preening' (mutual preening)

Later, on returning back towards home, I stopped off to have a chat with Rory (the Unst ranger) He was watching (and trying to photograph) several Swallows, Sand Martins and a House Martin that were hawking for insects over Haroldswick pools. Always up for a challenge, I stopped to have a go as well, and also soon to be joined by Mike (Pennington). These little birds don't hang about and even with just the 500 on the camera (I sometimes think I should have held on to my 300) it was very difficult to keep them in the frame. Below are a couple of the slightly better ones - an awful lot were binned ! ...............

Monday 11th April

  With the kids back at school (and Sula's friend Ellie going as well) I took Louisa out around the island for a bit of sightseeing. We did briefly see an otter at Buness but unfortunately it saw the car pull up just as I saw it so it didn't hang around. Another nice sighting over at Lamba Ness was the 'blue phase' Fulmar, it seems to have paired up with a 'normal' one. I do hope so as I'd love to see it there on a regular basis and I also wonder what the young will look like.......

                Robbie

  It really does feel like we've 'turned the corner' so to speak, the evenings are drawing out and it's now light until well after 8pm. I've been busy in the cottage for the last few days again and also the kids are on their Easter break at the moment. As well as thinking about jobs that need to be done around the house (inside and out) I'm also starting to think about outside projects etc. I intend to plant some trees for cover  for  migrants but first I've got to sort out the rabbit problem. Other than controlling their numbers, the only other ways are to either put up rabbit proof fencing (expensive and they get in there in the end anyway) or guards around the trees individually (again expensive and when there's heavy snow, they then nip out the tops of the saplings anyway). We intend to have a dog and a cat eventually so maybe they will be a deterrent.

   Due to time restraints, ie not lots of long periods of 'free' time, I seldom do any 'wait and see' or putting out food for birds ( I do still feed the birds in the garden however) and usually photograph things when I'm travelling around the island. Something I have noticed down at the shore at the bottom of our field is that either side of high tide, Red-breasted Mergansers often come in quite close to the shore. So, last Sunday, as the weather was quite nice - although windy - I decided to lie in wait under my bag hide and try and get some shots of these very nervous birds (they are here at any rate). I had to wait an hour before a female came past, but it was much longer before I saw a male. They are starting to pair up at the moment and so I was hoping for several males displaying but today sadly that was not to be..........................

Female Red-breasted Merganser

  Unfortunately by the time the male came past, the tide had dropped a bit and so he was further out than I would have liked..............

Male R-b Merg'

  As I lay there, I had several other close encounters, one was a Redshank that landed 10ft in front of me, it turned and looked at the lens poking out from the bag hide and decided it didn't like it and went off. Not long after, a Little Grebe came past and although it wasn't quite sure what it was on the shore it didn't dive in panic and just swam a little further out....................

Little Grebe

  This bird has been around Balta Sound all winter but has been quite difficult to get close to on a day to day basis. Even when I'm in the car along the shore road, it would dive and then resurface much further out, so on this day I counted myself lucky. It was a lovely couple of hours lying there listening to the cooing of Eiders and wailing of Red-throated Divers out in the bay, but I had work to do. My excuse for being there in the first place was that I was waiting for a coat of paint to dry ! Well that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Later on in the afternoon it turned cloudy, followed by rain showers in the evening. There hasn't been much in the way of solar activity lately, but I did check the website in the evening and nothing was forecast. Just before bed at around 11.30pm, I did look outside and was very surprised to see a green glow of an aurora over Setters Hill to the north.

                       Robbie

BST ...................

........ Baltasound Shivering Time !

  Well two days after the clocks went forward, we were having sleet/snow showers here on Unst. Within the space of 24 hours the wind direction went almost full circle and has now seemed have settled in a south easterly direction - bring on the migrants !

  After missing the Bearded Seal last Friday morning, I had hoped that it may come back (the one on Yell did for several months) For several days, I drove around past the slipway each time I headed along the shore road or if I was heading to the north, sadly to no avail. On one occasion I did come across a very obliging immature Shag that was drying itself on the breakwater........

  Returning home a little later, I took a short walk down to the shore to scan the coast opposite - in the slim hope that the seal had hauled out somewhere else (which it hadn't) I was startled by a Grey Heron that had been standing in the water down by the jetty which I hadn't seen. I'm always amazed how quick their reaction is, almost as though they are rocket propelled as they leap skyward. All I managed was a couple of shots as it flew off...........

  Yesterday (31st March) as I was driving the girls to crèche, I saw a small bird on a fence post just along the road from the house. As I got nearer, I was really pleased to see that it was a cracking male Wheatear - yes, spring has arrived ! I had arranged to meet Brydon about some work around mid-morning. As the time approached, I got a call; there was a male King Eider in Bluemull Sound showing well from the ferry. If I left straight away, I could catch the 11.20 ferry, enough said. Fifteen minutes later I was on the ferry and heading off from Belmont. Sure enough there it was, a male (probably the Uyeasound one) quite close to the boat. As we passed, the boat slowed for those interested, to get a good look. I managed some shots but it was nice to see as we were even closer than at Uyeasound the other week............

  This morning (1st April), after a cracking sunrise  ('red sky in the morning, shepherds warning' and all that stufff is true, it rained later) I did some more painting in the cottage - almost there - and then called over to a mate of mine for a while. On telling him about the eider, he jumped at the suggestion of going over on the ferry to take a look (fortunately the ferry is free) We missed the bird on the way out, but on the return had good views - also of it in flight....................

.......almost, but not quite there :(

  Returning home, we had some people coming to lunch who we'd never met or didn't even know - I won't bother to explain. While sitting having our meal, I was looking out at the wild rose bushes in the garden not far from the living room window, when something caught my eye. There was definitely a small bird moving around in there but I couldn't catch up with it with the bino's. Finally later on, I saw it again and confirmed it to be a Chiffchaff, the first for spring for Unst.

                      Robbie

  It's been a busy few days in many ways, but at least at the moment it's dry (but still quite windy) . At the weekend - during a lull in the painting in the cottage, I took a walk around the coast at the end of the road. I wasn't expecting to see anything (that thought alone should be a warning in itself) so I didn't take the camera, just the bino's. I don't tend to walk there if there is a strong sw or westerly blowing as it carries any human scent straight out over the rocks and seaward which would give any otter plenty of warning that someone was around. With that wind direction and the shape of the coast, it's very difficult to walk it without  announcing that someone is on the prowl. I think there is a portrait painting where it appears that the subjects eyes seem to follow you around the room. Well, that was just like the wind here on this occasion, as I walked, the wind always seemed to be blowing from me straight on to the water, no matter where I walked. With this in mind, I wasn't expecting to see any otters, wrong ! The wind was blowing from me straight towards them as they played (it was the mother and mature cub) below me in a seaweed filled creek. As they hadn't detected me, I retreated and detoured around the coast quite a way in order to approach them from the side. Finally getting to roughly where they were, I lay down amongst the rocks just as they appeared slightly to one side of me. They came over the rocks and lay down and dried themselves off on the seaweed. The cub wanted to play, but the mum didn't want any of it and headed back towards the water. It was at this point, she lifted her head and sniffed the air - rumbled. But instead of hurrying off, she slowly made her way through the kelp and into the water with the cub not far behind. It must be said though, the cub made hard work of it, trying to stand on the kelp which obviously couldn't take its weight - a bit like a dog trying to walk on deep soft snow.

  Not long after we arrived in 2008, I would occasionally see a small helicopter (different to the oil rig ones or 'Oscar Charlie' the Coastguard copter' ) flying around with a large barrel hanging below it. It didn't take long to find out what was going on from the Baltasound folk and that was, it was moving fish around from hatchery to sea cages or to the ships to take them south etc. To a newcomer, it seemed a very expensive way to do things. Recently however, I was talking to a guy who works on a salmon farm and said it was actually quicker and cheaper than doing it by road and then boat etc..........

  During another brief venture out over the weekend, I headed down to Westing as there was a good south westerly blowing and for some reason on days like this, there is quite often an otter feeding when the sea is rough. As I drove along the road, the sight of a number of Greylags' flying around in a sort of panic caught my eye. Looking up towards the rocky cliff face of Valla Field, I saw a strange shape flying along the skyline. My first reaction was to get a picture, but as to what it was I had no idea. It looked like one of those small aeroplanes that tows a banner behind it with greetings such as 'Happy Birthday xxxx ' or similar. Firing off a few shots, I then realized what it was.............

Is it a bird, is it a plane ?.......

No it's................'Super Goose' !

  This Greylag' had obviously been feeding and had got its head caught up in the wrapping from a silage bale. It was now very obvious why the other geese were in a 'flap'. Not so funny for this goose, I just hope that when it landed it managed to free its self.

On Monday (21st) I did the school run and dropped in  to Westing on the way back home. At the beach were quite a lot of Common Gulls feeding in the breaking waves. The wind was great for slowing them down in the air, but a real pain for blowing salt on to the lens element, can't have it all I suppose............

Common Gull

  Later in the morning I had to go up north to Norwick, so I took the opportunity to check out the beach there. Even though the wind was blowing from the land on to the sea, there were still a number of gulls feeding in the gently breaking waves. Amongst them was this fine Glaucous Gull......

 Back down south again in the afternoon to do the school run, I had half an hour to spare so I stopped off at Westing again. Along at the far end of the beach there was someone collecting large stones to make a temporary path in front of the holiday cottage there; what they hadn't seen, was an otter fishing probably less than 30yds away from them. After a short while, it came up on to the beach for a brief rest and a quick groom, before heading back in to the water..........

  Once I'd checked that it wasn't going anywhere in a hurry, I made my way along the beach towards where it was fishing moving each time it dived. Unfortunately I was now face in to the sea spray again (and in to the light) but at least it wouldn't catch my scent or hear the shutter going off. I spent as long as I dared (school pick up looming)....................

  Returning back to the car, I noticed that it was now moving along the along the shore, taking short dives between short periods of swimming on the surface. I'd seen this before so I was sure it would be coming out of the water onto the rocks near to me. As the otter emerged, it had a rather large crab in it's mouth. I was now almost out of time so if it was going sit and eat it, I didn't have time to stop and watch it for long....................

  Surprisingly, it dropped the crab and made off along the rocks and then climbed up on to a grassy bank where it groomed and dried itself for a minute or so.......................

  All good things have to come to and end so it was off to fetch my daughter. Just as I was heading down the main road to Uyeasound, I met Brydon coming the other way. We pulled up and with great excitement he told me he'd just found a male King Eider in the bay at Uyeasound. Picking Sula up from school, we headed down to the old harbour to scan the rafts of Common Eiders which were about half a mile out in the bay - it was not going to be easy. Thankfully within a very short time, we found the bird (and Sula saw it) - although distant - it was obviously a King'..................... very poor records shots !..........

500mm+1.4, full frame

 Large crop, bird is below the purple line

  It didn't end there however. Brydon had gone across Bluemull Sound on the ferry and then found another one resting on a small island in the sound - or maybe this one had flown across in the 40 minutes time difference, only 2 miles and eiders are one of the fastest birds in level flight.

  The following day (22nd) the eider was still there, but not only that, Brydon had found yet another bird (possibly a 2nd winter bird) further east in Skuda Sound - between Uyeasound and the island of Uyea. On my return from dropping the girls off for sports etc, I then had the two Rough-legged Buzzards over the road as I drove south, what a day....................

Rough-legged Buzzard

23rd March
 
  The eider was still around in Uyeasound, but I also got an Unst 'tick' in the form of a Rook near Buness.

24th March

  Today started off quite nicely with no wind and no rain - would it last ? After taking Rona to get the school bus at the end of the road, I returned home to do a bit of decorating etc. I also had a walk down the field to the shore line and picked out 5 Slavonian Grebes (one in breeding plumage) and 3 Red-throated Divers out in the sound. Up on the hill to the south, Golden Plover were calling, Fulmars were displaying on our chimney pots, it felt like it could be a good day. Later in the morning, I sent a text to Brydon asking if the eider was around, I quickly got a reply saying if I wanted to, I could join him on a boat trip to take a look for it. I'd already booked Rona in to crèche for the afternoon after school (Sula had gone to Lerwick to do her Grade 1 fiddle exam with Catriona ) so it was a big YES !

  Arriving there at 2.30pm, it was pouring with rain but at least the sound was relatively calm. We soon set off with Peter the boat skipper and within no time at all we were looking at a cracking male King Eider in amongst a raft of a several hundred Dunters (Common Eiders). Unfortunately for us, the rain and low cloud kept passing through which made taking pictures not that easy. Combined with the weather conditions and the rocking of the small boat, it called for a high shutter speed + high ISO to try and get some sharp(ish) shots. Despite the photographic difficulties, it was a great opportunity to get fairly close to the 'King' of eiders. We were out for a couple of hours (circumnavigating Uyea Isle) and also saw the 2nd winter male, several 'Northern Eiders' and numerous Long-tailed Ducks. A few pics below.......................

1st Winter/Summer drake King Eider

Common Eider with King Eider

Drake 'Northern' Eider (bird at the back)

Longtailed Ducks

  Later, back home; I got 'the call' from Brydon. There was a Bearded Seal on the slipway of the Baltasound marina - a 1st for Unst. It was now almost dark, but we had to go and take a look. Sure enough there it was looking quite content despite the interest shown by a lot of folk. Apparently it had been there for most of the day and I'd driven past it 3 or 4 times without knowing ! The shot below is a 'record shot' taken at 1/5th second @f5.6 at 6400 ISO..............

Bearded Seal in Baltasound

  As it had been there for most of the day, I had high hopes that it would be still around the following morning (25th) so I could get some better shots, well it was. However, I decided to take the girls to school first so I'd have a bit more time with it. It turned out to be a wrong decision however as 15 minutes before I got there, it was disturbed by a creel fisherman leaving the harbour,  it went in to the water and didn't get seen again until it just after 2pm when it was only seen briefly. Here's hoping for Saturday morning.

    Robbie

Photo gallery is down

  Just a quickie for today - I'll do another in a couple of days. The site that I had my photo galleries on, seems to be no-more. It seems that the site has shut down without a word to anyone which is a real pain for all concerned who have used the site. It's not just the time taken to upload the pictures etc but it now has to be done all over again somewhere else. I'll sort something else out over the next few days and hopefully by the weekend or early next week I can start putting up some pictures again. Fortunately for me at least, my subscription was due shortly so at least I won't have lost a years worth. For the time being I'll leave the photo link dialog box in place so that I can put a new link there when it's up and running.

Robbie

'False Summits'

  Before we moved up here to Unst, I used to do quite a bit of hill walking (even did some winter hills in the Lakes and Highlands years ago). Sometimes, when I was walking/scrambling upwards, I'd be so taken by the view etc that sometimes I would temporarily loose my bearings and look at the hill in front of me and breathe a sigh of relief as I thought I was at the top. Climbing over the 'final' brow of the hill, I'd get totally dismayed as I saw the hill going on up for hundreds of feet more, in reality that's the result of bad map reading or not keeping your 'eye on the ball' so to speak. A similar thing happened over the last couple of days, yesterday was a beautiful, still and fairly warm day (8 or 9 degrees) which really made me feel like spring had sprung. Golden Plover and Curlew were calling over the hills, Lapwing were displaying in several places and Starlings were singing all around, it felt good to be out. Today, I reached a 'false summit'. It was cold again, the wind has picked up to force 6 or 7 and it is raining. Just like not keeping an eye on the map, I should have kept an eye on the forecast !

  At the end of last week (11th) I went down to Lerwick for the day to do some shopping etc. There was still a bit of snow around so I thought I'd drive around through Nesting in a half hearted attempt to look for some Mountain Hares in their winter coats. I don't know why I bothered, I didn't have the time to leave the car and they were certainly not going to jump up and say ' here I am, taken some pictures then'. I then decided to have a look for the Snow Goose that had been around and was now around Strand near Tingwall. I found a large flock of Greylags - I suppose on the ground they should be called a 'gaggle' - but there was no Snow Goose, hey ho, must get on in to Lerwick.

  Jobs done, I headed north out of town again. I almost headed straight north but then made a quick decision to have one more look for the goose. Going on through Strand, I then took a turning up a hill away from the lock side. It was a good choice. Five minutes later I was looking at a beautiful Snow Goose feeding in a roadside field with a large group of Greylags. Driving on past and out of sight, I got the camera set up etc and turned around and went back. The geese were fairly nervous but I did manage to fire off some shots without them taking off in a panic. The light wasn't particularly good so I had to shoot at 800 ISO to get a half decent shutter speed..........

  I didn't really do much over the weekend as far as wildlife goes as I was starting to decorate the cottage which is attached to our house. The previous owners used to use it as their main living area and so used a sort of Aga type solid fuel  cooker. It created an awful lot of smoke stain on the walls and ceilings which needs to be cleaned off before any paint can be put back on. Our intention is eventually to rent it out as a two bedroom holiday cottage.


  As I said earlier, yesterday was a cracking day. I had a brief visit to Lamba Ness and just sat and watched the scores of Fulmars playing in the cliff top updrafts and had countless fly-pasts of  Gannets heading northwards to Hermaness. Anyone who says that Fulmars don't  fly for fun at times, have never watched them for long enough. Often when I've been watching them, many of them will fly past, look at me with their steely black eyes and then fly back past to take another look. Sometimes I think they are actually taunting me to try and go and join them - they are showing off (and no I'm definitely not going to try it !) As I sat there, I saw a large white gull coming around the headland to the north of me, it was a Glaucous Gull. It flew around the cliff line giving me a cracking view of it and it seemed to also watch me as it went by........

Glaucous Gull

  Today (15th March), I had an encounter with a female Merlin again just off the road by the Westing turn. I spotted the bird at the edge of some pools and noticed that it had just been having a wash. The amazing thing is, it was at this exact spot 12 months ago (almost to the day) that I photographed another female (maybe the same one?) doing just the same here . The fact that here on Unst there must be hundreds if not a thousand small patches of water in which a bird could wash and I have been lucky to see one twice in the same place is amazing - maybe I should do the lottery tomorrow ?.....................

 During the time that I'd gone to turn my car around and get the camera set up on the bean bag out of the car window  the bird had then moved and had flown closer to the roadside, only to be disturbed by a passing crofters car. The shot above is a large crop of it on the far side of the pool.

        Robbie