Pairing up

A Grasshopper warbler has now been singing for the past two weeks, trying to attract a mate but with no other Grasshopper warblers recorded it will be difficult

With lots of rare birds recorded over the past few weeks it will be interesting if any do pair up
A Male and female Eastern Sub- Alpine Warbler have paired up on Skerries with the male in song

Always lots of nesting Oystercatcher in Shetland, very noisy as they pass over

Turnstone now in full breeding plumage, many more now summer in Shetland

Arctic Tern numbers are not as high as last year, but the ones that have returned are displaying

Eiders are gathering in several parts of the south mainland and disputes are frequent

Breeding Birds in Shetland

Just finished analysing the figures for this years Shetland Breeding Bird survey. As before I completed two 1km squares and these are the results

Plot 1 (AOT)
                       2017        2018
Blackbird          2                2
Lapwing            2                3
Snipe                 0                1
Redshank          1                1
Curlew              2                2
Oystercatcher    1               1
Skylark              5               6/7
M'Pipit              5               5
Wheatear           2              1
Wren                 0              1


Plot 2 (AOT)

Blackbird           2             1
Curlew               1             2
Snipe                  1             0
Oystercatcher     3             5
Redshank           0             1?
Wheatear            1             2
Skylark               6             8
M'Pipit                7             5
Twite                   1            1
Hoodie                1             1

Its good to see Oystercatcher increasing while Curlew which seems to do well in Shetland compared to the rest of the UK , holding their own. Skylark numbers up on both plots with Meadow pipit slightly down.

As with all these figures you have to get a good number of years before a good comparison can be made. All this information has been passed onto The Shetland Amenity Trust which has been conducting this survey and results are normally published in the Shetland Bird Report