We headed down to Grutness and found the car park empty. The small loch was virtually frozen, but Mallard 10 just kept a small patch open. Around the carpark several Rock Pipit, Blackbird(1) Wren and several Starling all searching for food.
I headed for the beach where the light was superb and started to photograph a flock of waders on the tide line. Turnstone (48) Purple Sandpiper (8) Redshank (2) allowed a fairly close approach but the noisy Redshank left quickly putting the whole flock up.
Part of the flock moved along the beach but a good number returned to the same location and started to feed straight away. Turnstone are now in Shetland virtually the whole year and the beaches in the south mainland are good places to search for them
Out to sea, a couple of wintering Red Throated Divers mingled with Long Tailed Duck, a few minutes later three more RT Divers flew in. This is a good number for this time of year as most leave Shetland and head south.
The flock of LT Duck also increased to 36, the males chasing the females around and calling. A flock of Shag (8) joined Cormorant (4) and several Herring Gull and Kittiwake.
Half way along the beach two Snow Bunting came out onto the sands from the dunes, briefly joined by Twite (6)
Grutness
RT Diver (5) LT Duck (36) Shag (6) Cormorant (4) Eider (2) Mallard (10) Turnstone (48) Purple Sandpiper (8) Redshank (2) Curlew (2) Black Guillemot (4) Kittiwake (2) GBB (4) Herring Gull (6) Hoddie, Snow Bunting (2) Twite (6) Blackbird , Greylag (18) Wren, Rock Pipit(7) Rock Dove (6), Starling (20) , GT Northern diver
Elsewhere a Female Smew turned up at Nesting and close by a Black Throated Diver joined a flock of Gt North Diver, Bean geese in Unst
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