Showing posts with label West Voe Sumburgh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label West Voe Sumburgh. Show all posts

Monday, 16 March 2020

Sumburgh Spring birds

Finally managed to get out after lots of bad weather and being ill round Christmas. It was an excellent day on Sunday with lots of sun and a lack of wind

We stopped off at Sumburgh and straight away heard the song of Starlings, Twite, Meadow Pipit, Curlew and Oystercatcher - a good sign of spring

The three Twite sang away unconcerned by my close approach. They were joined by around 20 Starling who started singing immediately, what a tonic

Making my way over the West Voe I saw a small bird on a fence post which turned out to be a male Stonechat then the female jumped up near by. This pair has now been present for a week with the odd bird a bit further north


They constantly dropped down into the dunes picking up insects and looked settle, who knows if they will stay to breed




At Grutness only a few Shag could be seen on the incoming tide

This one surfaced just in front of me as I stood on the pier.






Several Red Throated Divers could be seen but only one showed any sign's of Summer plumage






Also good to see a group of 18 Long Tailed ducks in the bay

West Voe
Gt Northern Diver (2) Eider (6) Long Tailed Duck (66) Common Gull (22) Turnstone (18) Gt BB(2) Rock Pipit (4) Herring Gull (8) LBB (1)

Saturday, 5 January 2019

Shetland Divers

Over recent weeks we have had 4 species of Diver in Shetland. Black, Red, Gt Northern and White Billed

I did see the Black Throated Diver in west voe but it was very distant so I was unable to photograph it. Black Throated are rare visitors to Shetland. It stayed about a week and may have been the same one that stayed in the same place last year
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 Red Throated Diver


 Red Throated Diver are not common in winter and tend to spend time around Eastern Scotland or Northern England.

 The look smart both in winter and summer plumage and easily distinguished between the Black Throated with its checked back and white face


 This bird at Grutness did a circuit as most birds do and it took about an hour for it to return to the beach end where I waited




 Long Tailed Duck
 A flock of 10 Long Tailed Duck flew in but all stayed distant except this male

 This Gt Northern Diver flew in from West Voe and managed to catch three fish while feeding off the jetty




 Looks like a Scorpion fish which it downed in a couple of minutes 




Gt N Diver
A White Billed Diver has again been off  Kirkabister, these divers tend to keep well off shore.

Other birds of note during this past week included a couple of Bewick Swans (First since 2011), the Pied Billed Grebe at Spiggie and a Little Egret at Lower Voe, Black Redstart at Hillwell and a Brent Goose at Sumburgh Farm