Snow Bunting in Shetland

Its always great to find Snow Bunting and i located a party of 7 birds out on Grutness point, snow buntings are fairly regular visitors to Shetland at this time of year

 Initially they wouldn't allow a close approach and flew off as soon as i came over the brow of a hill

 I had virtually given up on them coming back when i saw the flock flying overhead and coming down about 500m to the west.

 Here they seemed more settled and i waiting until they started moving towards me. The continued to feed and came very close

 It was good to see the variety of plumage

In the last few days the flock has increased to 18 birds

Slav Grebe in the bay

 A flock of 56 Long Tailed Duck

The snow bunting are behind you ! well it is panto season

Very pleased to have been invited to give an illustrated talk on Shetland Migration to the Shetland Field Studies Group in Lerwick on Wednesday 28 November 2018 starting at 7 pm

Black Redstart

It was nice to find a Black Redstart just down the road at Sanick.in Sandwick.  This male was probably the best marked individual I have seen

I didn't manage to see it on the first visit but I saw it within 5 mins on the second visit inside the cemetery

It jumped on the wall and down into the carpark but by the time I had moved round it had gone

I moved the car round and sat a while in the carpark and it didn't take long before it was seen on the wall, this time for a bit longer. It then moved onto the ground and quickly moved over it to longer vegetation before getting chased off by a migrant Robin.

As most birds do a circuit I found it to the west hopping around on some piles of earth , then back into the cemetery

I quickly re located the bird working its way down a fence line, flying up onto the wire fence every now and again. It seem to find plenty of food on the ground.

It was certainly a good looking male, its mostly female/ juv birds that I have seen in Shetland. Although a male turned Black redstart did turn up to the north side of Sandwick a year or so ago

Black Redstarts tend to be late migrants to Shetland and birds sometimes stop into the long winter months. This one stopped 6 days and I saw it on its last day. The first few days of its stay it was also joined by a second bird

Other Black Redstarts turned up in Lerwick, Hoswick, Sumburgh & Boddam as well as several birds in the north isles. The same day I also saw the Siberian Stonechat down at Swinister but it was very mobile so no photos

The fields  in Sandwick are full of Greylag geese and feeding with these are Golden Plover (350) along with numerous Redwing, Fieldfare and Blackbird.

Other waders in these flocks include Turnstone, Redshank, Curlew, Snipe and Lapwing. A couple of days later, again in the Sandwick area I missed out on the Dusky Warbler at Hoswick, also Blue tit here which is just as rare.

More scare birds

As the month comes to an end the quality of birds has become better. Possibly 6 Little Bunting are now in the South Mainland and I finally got good view of one at Grutness which kept moving between a paddock and the garden.

I managed to get a few record photos, shooting into the light but better than nothing.

The Red breasted Flycatcher (possibly two) at the large quarry was very confining down to just a couple of feet away. A Spotted Flycatcher , Blackcap , Goldcrest, Siskin, Fieldfare and Robin join the RBF.

Up at Sumburgh head a flock of 47 Ruff were found feeding on a wet area but frequently flying up onto the moorland. A male Kestrel flew over and a reported Marsh Warbler turned out to be a Reed Warbler still scarce in Shetland.

A lot of people came and debated what it was

The Lapland Bunting must have been a fly over as none seem to have a clue where it was. There was now a Robin and a second Chaffinch joining the Garden Warbler, Lesser Whitethroat, Blackcap & Goldcrest

A Peregrine was good to see near Bigton and two Grey Heron 10 miles apart seemed new in as well

 Other interesting birds are bluethroat, Black Throated Diver & Gt Grey Shrike