Weekend Birding trip, The 13th & 21st of April

After hearing about a Coal Tit in the South Mainland, my Dad and I headed down for a look, stopping off for any other birds along the way.

Sadly there had been no sighting of the bird the past the past few days so we headed of to Virkie instead and found these.

 Shelducks

A Bonxie eating a fish

(I was told that the white patch around the eye is a good indication of an old bird)

Bonxie chased by a Swaabie

A "happy" couple

Left: 1 adult spring Sandwich Tern (a new tick for me).

This bird has a ring on its right foot you can't see it on this photo

but I looked at another photo of the same bird from a nearby birder showing a ring

that looked like EIF it was hard to tell because it was at quite a distance.
Update: This Bird was ringed at the Ythan Estuary, North of Aberdeen by the Grampian Ringing
Group on the 10th of September 2010 it's ring reads ETF not EIF

Right: Black-headed Gull

 Common Gull at Grutness

 

After visiting Virkie and later Grutness we headed over towards Quendale

and found 1 Sand Martin, 4 Blackbirds and two House Martins.

Other Birds Today:

Virkie- 2 Swallows

4 Sanderlings

9 Shelducks

Grutness- 1 Red-Throated Diver.

Now here is some photos from my South Mainland trip on the 13th of April with Paula and Nat.

First we headed along the coast towards Spiggie Loch (through Bigton) finding 1 Red-throated Diver.

On arriving at Spiggie Loch we spotted a Moorhen, about 40 Wigeon and 5 Shelducks.

Meadow Pipit

Meadow Pipit again

 Lapwing

Greylag Goose

Shalder

a Common Maa

After finishing our spin around Spiggie we went to Grutness looking for a Coot

 and we found it, a great adult bird

Female Mallard aka a Stock Deuk

 A male Stock Deuk

 Shetland Pony

 a Shetland Wren

a Turnstone or Steynpikker

and a Sanderling one of five birds seen today.