Weekend Birding 28th and 29th of September and the 1st of October

Saturday the 28th

So today on our way back from Grutness Mairi and I went along to Wester Quarff to see a Brown Shrike which had been seen the day before.

On arrival I spoke to a birder who told me that the Shrike was further along the road, a bit further along I spoke to two more birders who said it was further along the road and finally I came to a group of birders who said that the bird was on a fence post at the bottom of a park (The end of the park was at least 250 metres away).

One of the birders let me and Mairi have a look through his scope and there in the centre of the scope eyepiece was the Brown Shrike a first for both of us and a very nice bird with its rusty brown head.

My very blurry shot of the Brown Shrike

After watching the bird for 20 minutes I went to have a look for a Little Bunting in the garden next to the group of birders.

After 5 minutes I spotted the bird perched in a tree, I took several photos of the bird and then told a passing birder who was quite pleased when he saw it and then the Bunting when deeper into the tree and disappeared.

Little Bunting 

I came back a few minutes later and saw some Goldcrests in the same tree after watching them for a few minutes I moved on to try and find the Shrike again.

I found the group of birders a bit further along the road, I set up my scope and repeatedly tried to find the bird but it kept moving from post to post so after 10 minutes Mairi came back along the road and we headed back to Lerwick.

Sunday the 29th

I arrived in Brae this afternoon before I went up to Yell, on arrival my granny and granddad said that they had a Woodpecker flying around, I quickly rushed out with my granddad Tommy in search of it.

We checked the plantation next to their house and I had barely spent a minute in the plantation before I came to a small tree with some red berries on it as I started to walk closer to the tree the Woodpecker flew out of it!, a Great-spotted to be exact, a long sought after first! I quickly chased after it and caught a glimpse of it before it flew off towards some houses, I met back up with Tommy and we watched it fly into the centre of an area of Brae called "Toy toon".

We both split up to see if we could relocate the Woodpecker, Tommy went in the direction of were the bird was last seen and I went into the trees to see if it had flown.

When I got back into the trees I found a Redwing, Tommy had spotted the same one earlier.

So this was quite a good weekend with several new birds, the Great-spotted Woodpecker was a very good bird because I had been missing ones quite alot this year.

Tuesday the 1st of October

So here is a bit of an add on from my weekend birding.

On Monday the 30th of September (yesterday) a Hudsonian Whimbrel (a recent bird elevated to a fully species) was seen outside Mid Yell at what we call the "Head o da voe", it was seen flying north and was not relocated again.

The next day (Tuesday) after school I got a text saying that the Whimbrel was back, luckily my granddad Tommy was up and we went to see it, on arrival we spotted several birdwatchers, one of them was Yells oldest, Andy Gear he pointed the bird out for me just before he left, Tommy and I were able to get some good looks at it and a bunch of blurry shots before we went back into Mid Yell.