Shetland Swan Count 2015

8th of November 2015, the annual Swan count across Shetland with people looking across as many islands and lochs as possible.
For this Dave and I were doing the lochs around the Central Mainland (excluding Lerwick).

Beforehand I did some birding round Clickimin and a local of Westerloch pointed out something in a push, it took me ages to spot it but it turned out to be a Waxwing! year tick! I happened to be on the opposite side of the road from the man and another one was walking equal with me at the same time, also seeing it, he was John Laurie Irvine from Whalsay who was in Lerwick while he waited for his boat to offload its fish.
Anyways we both got some shots, mine were decent enough so I was happy just watching it munch away on the berries as I haven't seen one for ages.
Soon though it flew off and I spoke with John before we followed it and found a second! more photos and they both flew off a bit, and this happened for a while before Dave showed up to pick me up, by the end there was at least 2 Waxwings but there could of been more.

Waxwing

First stop was just outside Lerwick where 3 Whooper Swans were on a loch and then to East Voe of Scalloway but there was no Swans and then onto Asta/Tingwall, Dave did his duck counts while we were at it and there was plenty of ducks on Tingwall including Long-tailed Duck and 3 Slavonian Grebes plus 2 Mutes.
Strand had no Mutes and neither did Laxfirth Voe but 3 Whoopers were on the Black Loch, but the breeding pair from Vaster Loch weren't present.
Next we headed into Weisdale/Stromfirth and managed 2 Mutes and 9 Goosander! not bad, now onto Kergord.
Dave and I had a walk through the trees in Kergord and managed a Chiffchaff but nothing else, very quiet, we started to leave and I spotted something by the road, a juvenile Kittiwake!!!! I got Dave to pull over and I got out to have a look, surprisingly the bird was still but hardly, it barely acknowledged I was there and Dave also spotted a large female Sparrowhawk do a flyby.

Heading to Upper Kergord we had an odd record of a perfectly healthy looking adult Whooper in a field, no water nearby, just it deciding to chill in some random field.
Upper Kergord hosted two very nice Siberian Chiffchaffs and then it was up to Brae for the Black-throated Diver that had been knocking around.
Heading up we had one Rook outside of Brae which was presumed to be a migrant as the local birds rarely leave the Tingwall/Weisdale Valley.
We got to Brae and started scanning the voe for this diver, now we didn't see it in the end, only diver we saw was a slightly darker necked Red throated but I did get my first Common Scoters of the year and there was a record count of 45 Red-breasted Mergansers together! so it wasn't bad, we got cold and there was no sign of the bird so we headed off home.

September/October 2015

Finally an update!!

This ones been sitting with the Summer one just waiting to be uploaded for a few days now but I've finally got it all together so here's my summary of September and October! 

8th September 2015

On the 8th of September a Long-billed Dowitcher was found on Swara Shun, north of Burravoe, Yell by Pete Cosgrove. 

I headed down on the day and got reasonable views of my 242nd bird in Shetland (also a Lifer) before going down the next day with young birder, Joe Petrie, we had the bird down to 3 metres as it walked past it so it wasn't bad! now Joe has seen both Dark-eyed Junco and Long-billed Dowitcher and he hasn't even passed the 60 mark in Shetland!

Long-billed Dowitcher, just before it was scared off by several Bonxie

13th September 2015

Today had Dave, Pete and myself going down Da Ness for a run.

First place of note was Scatness/Scord with a total of 42 Ruff (39 at Scord), Peregrine, Goldeneye, juv Moorhen, 5 Black-tailed Godwits between the two, quite an impressvive sight with all the Ruff and Godwits as they were all quite close to the road.

Next came the Grutness beach in search of Curlew Sandpiper, Pete managed to scope one out resulting in a Lifer for me! no.243! also there was a Little Stint too.

Next came Hillwell and there was 14 Ruff in a field but not much else.

Otherwise everything was quite, we spotted another 4 Ruff elsewhere, a Pink-footed Goose, a 'collard' Greylag Goose and Pete had a Reed Warbler in the bushes at Quendale.

That really concluded our day so we trekked back north.

Black-tailed Godwit and Ruff

19th September 2015

Today had me finally getting my first Yellow-browed Warbler in the trees at Rena Nisbet's in Mid Yell with another two being seen/heard in several other locations within the next few days.

25th September 2015

At the end of September I headed down to Sumburgh to catch a flight to Edinburgh for a conference in Callander for young people who were passionate about biodiversity, in other words I have been picked as one of sixteen young people across Scotland who have been brought together on a panel to try and protect and halt the loss of biodiversity in Scotland so we can reach the 2020 and 2030 biodiversity targets set by the EU & Scotland.

I went down to Sumburgh with Tommy for a bit of birding beforehand, we dipped on Blyth's Reed Warbler which hadn't been showing for several hours but instead we headed to Virkie for the chance of Grey Plover, as birds had been sighted there the past few days. 

Luckily when we arrived I spotted the bird just on the beach from the 'Virkie Willows', Shetland tick! I've been waiting for one of these for ages but I've never been able to catch up with one.

Grey Plover, no.244 on my Shetland List

28th September 2015

Today I'd planned to go with Tommy on a rarity hunting spree around the North Mainland, trying to get Eastern Subalpine Warbler, Nightingale and Blyth's Reed Warbler.

As I was waiting for the 1630 ferry to the Mainland I noticed that a Grey-cheeked Thrush had been found at Ollaberry.

There was a bird in Shetland last year that I saw but the views weren't really that great so I thought we'd go for a look.

Off the ferry and straight for the first bird- Eastern Subalp, there was a single birder in Mossbank speaking to the owner of the house and he hadn't seen the bird in over two hours so we zipped straight north.

It was easy enough to find the twitch as there was 40 people assembled around one garden with scopes and etc.

I got out and joined the group but it was in dense cover and hadn't shown in about 10 minutes so I sat patiently, there was a few Shetland birders plus about 7 NGB's from England who I recognized.

It took around 20 minutes before a call went up saying that the bird had gone left but I didn't catch, neither did I spot in when it went left, again and again and again, it was some really dense bushes!

So I sat myself down among the NGB's and after a minute I noticed one was looking at me, Matthew Bruce, a regular on NGB and if I'm correct one of the originals.

I could tell he was remembering me from somewhere and then he spoke to me, 'NGB Tick' was his first words to me and true enough he was right.

An 'NGB Tick' is like twitching, you go and tick a bird but in this case you tick an NGB (Next Generation Birder), I'm probably more of a difficult one to get as I'm up in Shetland but after that I introduced myself to the whole group which consisted of - Matthew Bruce, James Shergold, Oliver Metcalf, Scott Reed & Tim Jones. all of them I've noticed once or twice on the NGB page.

But yes it was good to finally meet some of them and just have a good chat! I spoke mainly to Matthew and it was great to swap a few stories and hear about the birds he'd seen.

But back to the Grey-cheeked, it took a while before the next sighting but I finally got my eyes watching one open bit between two bits of cover and the rest of the NGB's had already left so it was just me along with the rest of the twitch, as I was watching the opening, someone shouted that it was going left and I saw it go by and like that I was gone too!

I'd spent around an hour there and had to get home so I couldn't wait around but the twitch was enjoyable. 

3rd of October 2015

This was the first weekend I'd been out in a few weeks so Dave and I went twitching out west for the likes of Mediterranean Gull, Arctic Warbler and Pechora Pipit.

First stop was Weisdale Voe for the Med Gull but it failed to show, instead a Little Gull put on appearance (year tick).

One of the few I've seen in Shetland

We headed west and many birders were at Melby looking for the Pechora but none had actually seen, neither had we by the end of the trip either!

Back east and to Cott, Weisdale for the Arctic Warbler which didn't show either and another hunt for the Med Gull wasn't successful, but that goes to show you that if you don't look you don't see so its always worth going even if you don't see the bird in the end!

4th of September 2015

I had planned to go for a meal for my birthday, well before my birthday as it was tomorrow, but anyways that got cancelled so instead I headed up to North Roe to get a few things of mine.

female Pintail on Clickimin, patch tick from the morning

On the way north the phone went off with a text, 'Swainson's Thrush in Baltasound'(!!!!), I checked the time and we'd have to go in on the 1530 but we'd make it to Unst with no bother at all so we got my stuff and headed for the ferry.

There was a few groups of birders waiting to cross over Yell sound and head to Unst, one of these groups was Phil Harris, Rebecca Nason and their daughter Ayda.

They were heading up to Unst as well, so I asked if they had a spare seat going up and they did so we headed up to Unst, luckily it saved Tommy the journey.

It was a great journey up north as I've never really had the chance to go round with Rebecca and Phil.

We arrived at the Final Checkout to see a large (by Shetland standards) group of birders situated around a rectangular group of steel boxes, where the bird obviously was, I spoke to one of the birders who said that it hadn't been seen in 20 minutes so we all took up spots and waited.

The bird eventually came out after an hour and I got a quick view of it before it dived back in and out over again.

Swainson's Thursh! No.245 for me in Shetland and a very nice Lifer

After a few minutes the bird shot out and went around the corner towards the shop with Phil, me and  many other birders in hot pursuit.

It landed under a trailer for a minute and everybody lined up.

Swainson's Twitch behind the Final Checkout, Unst

Satisfied with our views everyone headed back to the car, Rebecca wanted a quick last look so we drove to where it had been last seen and I stayed with Phil and Ayda in the car.

I was looking out the window when some movement caught my eye and I looked to see the Swainson's under a truck just a few metres away, I got Rebecca's attention and a few other birders came over to watch it now sitting on a post where it sat happily for a few minutes before flying off.

14th-24th October 2015

For this we headed to Spain for a holiday in the town of Nerja, near Malaga, southern Spain.

It was a nice town with plenty of birds (5 lifers) and beaches.

Birds during this trip were Yellow-legged Gull, Black & Common Redstarts, Spotless Starling (Lifer), Little Owl (Lifer), Stonechat, Grey Wagtail, White Wagtail, Chiffchaff sp, Reed Warbler, Blue Rock Thrush (Lifer), Blue-crowned Parakeet (Lifer), Long-tailed Tit, Blackcap, Coal Tit, Firecrest.

Though maybe a bigger blog post will be needed for all the photos

Little Owl

Juvenile Blue Rock Thrush

25th of October 2015

I just arrived back from Spain this morning off the boat and I was straight into the twitching game, a Cattle Egret had been found up at Collafirth in the North Mainland about a week ago and it was only the 2nd ever Shetland record so I planned to twitch it with Dave.
We left Lerwick at 9.45 and headed to Gulberwick, where a White's Thrush had been found a few days before.
Sadly we did not see it and neither did anyone else that day, but we did have a flyover Jackdaw which is quite the Shetland scarcity!
Next came Collafirth, we headed straight north and searched around all the sheep and cows in the area but with no luck.
Trying to locate the bird we headed across the valley to scan back onto the hill, I managed to spot it within a few minutes, resulting in my 246th Shetland tick and my 18th edition this year!

I got a record shot and we went back across the valley and I tried to get closer for photos, which I managed and got some decent shots.
So after that we checked a few more places and failed to relocate a Green-winged Teal at Bardister before heading home.

Cattle Egret

So that's my birding for the  past two months, filled with some rares and commoner species but still pretty enjoyable.

An update is required, I have been quite quiet recently, life has been busy and the blog is in need of a few more posts from the summer so will get around to it very soon!!

The past few weeks- in summary

Over the past few weeks I have been out birding, though I haven't been keeping up to date with the Blog.
There's a few reasons behind that, a) technical problems with the Laptop and b) getting around to actually doing the blog post,
So here I'm going to summarize what I've been doing over the past weeks, notifying a few of the birds and trips along the way.

Over the past two and a bit weeks I've added 2 species to my Shetland list in the shape of a Hoopoe on Unst on the 22nd of May with Jim Nangle, and a Nightingale on Noss on the 24th of May when I took a trip out there to twitch it.
Another trip to Unst on the 4th of June got me a Lifer and a few year ticks with Great Reed Warber being the lifer along with a good host a birds and I also met a South birder, Sean Gauton, all is on my most recent post found here
The year list has gone up by 16 species with trips to Unst, Noss and the South Mainland, though many more year ticks have popped up that I haven't been able to go for, Greenish Warblers, Canada Goose, Rustic Bunting, Quail, Great White Egret, Rosefinch, Nightjar, White-billed Diver, Bee-eater, King Eider, Hobby and Bluethroat, most of these mixed between Unst & Fair Isle.

Ringing has been slightly slow with the waders, Raven season is over and the waders aren't exactly in full spring with some Oystercatcher chicks and a few Lapwings, more Redshanks though, seem to be around.

So yeah its been a good few weeks and hopefully tomorrow I'll be twitching White-billed Diver so wish me luck!

The Great Twitch (for a Great Reed)

On Wednesday the 3rd of June, news broke of a Great Reed Warbler in a garden at Baltasound, Unst.
At the time I was preparing to take a group of my young birders around Mid Yell for a look so I couldn't get up and twitch it, though seeing Lesser Whitethroat made the day all so better and confirming a Red-backed Shrike at West Sandwick which was part of an influx that day.

That night I was able to organise a way around Unst, so the next day I headed up twitching.
After hitchhiking up north I arrived in Baltasound,

I headed into the shop to find out where Davy Leask lived as I didn't actually know where he lived so they'rd be no chance of finding my bird!
Luckily the people at the shop did know where he lived so I set off to his house, via Halligarth.
At Halligarth I spotted a car sitting around which I picked out as Robbie Brookes' car, he started turning around as I came and this bird large ish bird landed in a bush but I waited till I'd finished speaking with Rob before I checked it out.
Rob told me that the Great Reed Warbler had been seen in Halligarth in the morning but I'd be lucky to see it as it hadn't been seen since, several Icterine Warblers, Red-backed Shrikes, Quail, Reed Warbler and Sedge Warbler had also been seen around so I kept an eye out for that.
Rob drove off home and I went back to looking for the bird I'd seen fly into one of Brydon's bushes,
getting closer to the bush something big flew out and I ran back to the road.
The bird dropped down onto the ground and I waited for it to come back up, it skulkly popped into another bush and it looked big, I mean BIG, it was a light browny colour but I couldn't get an ID on it.
The large warbler thing flew into Halligarth and I followed, it was hopping around in the sycamore and the views were much better, it was the GREAT REED!! then it darted into the sycamore and another acrocephalus type thing skulked around as well.
Suddenly this car rolled up with a birder in it, he asked me if I'd seen the Great Reed Warbler, my answer was I'd just seen it! so he parked up and we started looking.
Within a couple of minutes we found the bird again in Brydon's garden, ok views were obtained before it flew off again, also a Lesser Whitethroat happened to be knocking around.

Lesser White at Halligarth

After seeing the Great Reed it flew off down the road towards an abandoned house, just as visiting birder, Ray O'Riley, appeared around the corner with his partner, looking for the bird!

So the four of us headed in the direction of the bird and it soon gave us a flyby and landed in a far away bush.

As you can see, Great Reed Warblers in flight aren't exactly the best for taking photos of

Sean and I decided we'd stick together and find the birds as he didn't know the sites and I didn't have any mode of transportation.

We spent another hour at Halligarth and it was well worth the wait, by the end of it we'd tallied up a male & female Red-backed Shrike, singing Icterine Warbler, flycatching Spotted Flycatcher, Blackcap, two Swallows and singing Chiffchaff!

Female Red-backed Shrike, Unst tick along with most of the birds seen at Halligarth!

Icterine Warbler

Spotted Flycatcher

Next came the Haroldswick Pools, Ray O'Riley had told us of a Wood Sandpiper he'd found there so we decided to check it out.

It didn't take long before we found the Wood Sand but there was a good deal of things around, a Sedge Warbler was singing in the bushes, a Short-eared Owl was being mobbed by a flock of Starlings, two Garden Warblers were sitting out in the open and a Reed Warbler was skulking in the bushes!

Another good deal of time was spent watching the birds and I even managed some recordings of the Sedge Warbler song!

Hiding Sedge Warbler

Short-eared Owl

Also a male Red-backed Shrike which I forgot to mention!

Wood Sand on the Pool

And one of the Garden Warblers 

Next came Vaylie, Norwick and something odd was calling in the trees, I couldn't quite put my finger on it but I was thinking Twite.

Soon we located this odd bird, a Brambling! it was calling away in the top of a tree before it flew off.

Time was catching up with us so we headed south, meeting Hugh Harrop at Haroldswick who'd just been on Fetlar and then onto Baltasound where we tried for Quail outside of Brydon's.

Brydon spotted us and he gave us a wave over, he was just checking to make sure we'd got the Great Reed, we had a peerie chat and a cup of tea and then it was time to head to the ferry after an excellent days birding.

Finally leaving Unst after a truly great day

And a sunset to end it off

East meets west! Ducks, Crakes & Egrets

For this weekend I intended to spend it on Yell for my siblings birthday party, but due to a sickness going round we had to cancel and I still stayed in Yell.
On the morning of the 17th of May, I headed out to find nesting birds and maybe a few migrants, Blackbird nests were logged and even a migrant Redpoll but nothing else, then news broke of a Little Egret at Spiggie in the South.
I'd said to myself if anything turned up on Sunday then I'd go for it so I did, within the next two hours I'd journeyed down to the Mainland and with the help of Paula we went down for it.

Hugh Harrop and one of his tour groups had found a singing male Corncrake down at Boddam the day before, nowadays this species is quite difficult to find in Shetland since they've stopped breeding but this bird was said to be quite easy to see so we decided to head to it first as I have never seen one,
We rolled up to Boddam, parked up and waited (after being told where to park by Roger Riddington), 40 minutes passed, we'd heard it call many times, this weird insect like noise and then Paula spotted it but it disappeared again.
My hopes slowly started to dwindle but it called again and then Paula spotted it again, skulking through the grass away from us! I got good views and a photo before it wandered off.

Well its a record shot!

The rain came back on and the bird seemed unlikely to come out again so we headed off to Spiggie for the Little Egret.
We arrived to Spiggie and from a distance we could see Jim Nicolson parked up (most likely photographing the Egret).
Suddenly Paula spotted this white bird fly up from the marsh and up comes the Egret! it flew overhead and then lands on the cliffs! Certainly an easier Shetland tick than the Corncrake!
No.234 on my Shetland List so I'm not doing to bad.
I got a few photos of the Egret before Jim rolled up and we spoke for half an hour before heading off to Hillwell for a Garganey.

Flight shot

The bird seemed to like sitting on the cliffs

Not the typical spot for a Little Egret

Arriving at Hillwell I whipped out the scope and started scanning the Loch, first of all I noticed a large number of Swallows, 2 Knot and a pair of Shoveler.
One male Pintail was picked up among the reeds and then a pair flew in! I tried to get Paula onto them (who was using binoculars) and in the process I spotted my first Garganey in Shetland! a splendid male which very quickly disappeared into the reeds.
It was around 3 o'clock by this time and we were needing to head back north so we headed off.

We were heading through Cunningsburgh and I got a call from Hugh Harrop (I assumed it was about the Garganey) so I picked up.
He asked where we were and I said Cunningsburgh and he told us to quickly turn around and get to South Punds, Levenwick, he'd just found two drake Ring-necked Ducks!
After a slight rearrangement of plans we doubled back south and were enjoying these North American beauties within 10 minutes!

It may be distant but you can make out the white line on the bills if you zoom in

Next came the actual trip north, I ended in Brae and found myself a year tick of 3 Siskins in the Plantation between the school and "Toy Town", so not a bad end to the day!
But big thanks to Paula for taking me around, I would of never seen them without her help!

The Patch, some Migrants and the Odd bit of Ringing

The weekend of the 24th was pretty good in my terms.
First of all the 25th started with a bang, two patch ticks of Willow Warbler and Common 'Mealy' Redpoll turned up on Clickimin, in the same tree! so I was delighted about that.

Male Gadwall, one of only a pair that are on Clickimin now, first Shetland breeding record?

Mealy? Lesser? Its a Redpoll anyway

Stretching Willow Warbler

The head colour looks quite subdued but you can still see the red

Bressay in the background, quite an odd sight

Later on in the day I headed out with Paula and a trip to Ladysmith Road got me a Hawfinch (year tick along with the above birds), a Goldfinch and a Goldfinch x Greenfinch Hybrid! a really odd but fascinating bird and probably the first one in Shetland, of course credit goes to the finder Jim Watt who lives in the house where the bird was seen.

The beast itself, captive escape? wild hybrid? who knows but it is odd

I also had time to go out on the patch and the snow was rising as steam off the hills

Seal at Seafield

Sleepy Seal

And this beauty! patch year tick of a Razorbill, quite the treat also around was a White Wagtail (patch year) and 18 Tysties

Also the old Sea Kale is growing more everyday

Water droplet upon the leaf

Closer up shot of the droplet

Purple Sandpiper "KKU" ringed in Svalbard

This guy was found by Kevin Bryant and has been around for a few days

The next day the 26th I headed out with Dave for some Raven ringing, my first shot at ringing Ravens after I went twitching for a Cretzschmar's Bunting last year (and dipped) instead of ringing.
It was a truly amazing experience, the chicks were so fat and the bellys huge so I found it difficult to hold them/pick them up.
We were doing one nest and this pair kept squawking until one flew down and landed just a foot short of where I was, I've never been that close to an adult Raven and even Dave was amazed!
A total of 7 chicks were ringed and hopefully we are to do some the next weekend.

Though my story is not done, after Dave dropped me in Brae just before 4, I got ready for tea, then he texted with news of a BLACK KITE at Exnaboe, now going from Brae to Sumburgh to see a bird of prey which may fly off and roam the Shetland cpountryside is quite risky, though I like my risks....
I ended up phoning one of the finders Roger Riddington (The other finders were Rob Fray & Gary Bell) to see if the bird was still around, he said it was happily sitting on a fence post and looked like it would sit around, I asked him to keep me posted and we shot off!

The Deep Blue (not really the right name for a red ship)

An hour later we arrived to see Jim Nicolson & Roger at the site at North Town, Exnaboe looking at a plowed park.
I got out, got directions and raised the bins to the Kite sitting on the ground a few hundred metres away! Black Kite! Shetland tick/lifer no.232 and also no.105 on the year list! I rattled off a few record shots and we spent a minute or two admiring the bird.
I don't really see myself as a twitch and go kinda person but I have to be at times, such as needing to catch a ferry and so on, so we left and thanked Roger for helping out.

Record shot or what? still good to have a memory of it- Black Kite

I don't really see myself as a twitch and go kinda person but I have to be at times, such as needing to catch a ferry and so on, so we left and thanked Roger for helping out.

We headed off and I spotted some Curlew ish sized birds in the park below Paul's so we checked them out, I very happily raised by bins to not 1 but 4 Whimbrel! year ticks! (106) I was actually more excited to find these 4 Whimbrel than the Kite! it did round off a great day so we headed north and that conludes this blog post.

In the field I have difficulty sometimes separating them from Curlew but its from lack of experience

Its good to get them again, hopefully more birds will return in the next week

Journey for a Junco!

At 1100hrs on the 11th of May, news broke that would send a majority of the Shetland birding community racing to see it. A DARK-EYED JUNCO, a rare North American bunting with only four previous records and the first since 2003 was found by Donald Robertson in his garden at Toab (not a bad one for the garden list!).

A photo online asking for an ID of this shocked many of those who looked at it, it probably took them a second to quickly put out the news but soon people were flocking.

And me? well I was playing football during breaktime in Mid Yell and I just stopped there and then, gawking at the text I'd just received.

Over the course of the next like 3 hours, I was trying to figure out a way to get down there to see this rarity, luckily somehow, I managed the bus timetable right, got someone to run me back up to Yell and also got to give the chance for a much younger birder, Joe Petrie, to come and see it!

I took us over an hour and a half to make it down but with the help of Paula Moss, Joe & I made it down the South Mainland.

On the way we phoned up Hugh Harrop who gave us directions straight to the bird (thanks Hugh!) and also he said about two Cranes at Levenwick! I hadn't even heard of them! (presumably the Yell birds because they weren't seen today).

Soon we had made it down to Toab at 1815 and the rain had started, we couldn't see Hugh so I gave him a call and he said two birders were walking towards us so we mobilised.

Roger and Glen appeared around the corner and pointed in the general direction, so the pace evidently picked up.

Right round the corner was Hugh with one of his massive cameras, I did see this dark thing which I took for a Sparrow under a trailer (this was it).

Hugh said it was hopping around on the grass behind the trailer so I crouched down and there it was! Joe and Paula both laid eyes on it and we all enjoyed a very nice Lifer!

So the Junco was my 233rd bird in Shetland and Joe's 42nd ish (we are still working out his list), also my 118th for the year!

Initial shots/views of the Junco

Joe spying at it under the trailer

The Junco happily hopped along the grass before flying off, we headed to Donald Robertson's garden to see if it had returned and I was delighted to see a Sedge Warbler! year tick no.119 and Joe's first ever! that though didn't stay for a photo.
Though soon we were back to the Junco as Paul Harvey was waving us back over to see it.
We got slightly better photos and here's one of the results before it flew off again.

They are beauties these Junco, a stonking male, shame we didn't hear it call

Well anyways it was time to head so we said our goodbyes and nipped up to South Punds, Levenwick for the Cranes.

A few minutes initial searching and I spotted them pretty close in, a year tick for me (120), Paula's first in Shetland and Joe's first!

The pair, I've seen photos of them mating, maybe Shetland's first breeding record?

Joe and Paula watching the Cranes

Two happy Crane twitchers

So we headed back north, Joe managed another lifer in the form of a Swallow and soon we were up at the ferry waiting to catch the 2015 home.

A happy boy with 11 (!!!) Lifers under his belt including the Junco, he's hardly passed 50 yet!

Well it was some day, I can't help but thank those who helped out, Dave for sending me the news, Hugh for the directions and help to see the birds and Paula who drove us there and back so we could see it. Who knows though, maybe we'll be doing something similar next week, how about Spectacled Warbler on Whalsay?