Cor blimey its dull out here! The arrival of about 6 Wheatears ( according to Donald) coincided with the falls of the weekend, and three of them remained here until early afternoon at least, along with a single rusty fronted juv Pied wag. I must admit, as I dosed on the chopper on the way in today, I was enjoying visions of Barred warblers and Red backed shrikes helping themselves to a carpet of Silver Ys and Red admirals, with the odd Greenish warbler thrown in for good measure. If only!

     The only seabird of any note was an arctic tern, which would be a beatrice year tick, if I was to bother with such things.

     They've managed to get the first wind turbine in place and bugger me its massive! Like, really massive. Imagine a normal wind turbine, and then make it bigger…..bit more….bit more…there you go, see, big isn't it!

   A light SE wind was blowing tonight, so I'm praying for fog overnight. Fingers crossed!

Back to old haunts today, in the hope of a lingering goody from the weekend. There were migrants around, but I had to make do with a Garden warbler in the Sycamore at girdle, and a few willow warblers Bumped into Ian Kelman in Greyhope bay, who kindly offered to take me up to see if one of the Greenish warblers had kindly decided to hang around. They hadn't. Good numbers of willow warblers around, and a pied flycatcher in the church yard at Collieston.According to Ian, this was the same bird that had caused all the fuss the other day, when it was put out as a Red breasted flycatcher (admittedly, that was not the birds fault). I think he must have been mistaken, as although it was a poorly marked bird, it was clearly a Pied fly.
  What really gave us a thrill today was watching butterflies, mainly Red admirals and Painted ladies, coming in off the sea. A constant trickle were coming onshore at blackdog, and I got a few pickies, that may or may not appear  here, depending on  how  much patience i can muster up on the computer. Also, gazillions of moths were arriving, that looked like silver Ys, but i took some pickies of them as well, so I could mike a firm Id…….

……..Yep, Silver Y. which makes me feel like a bit of a tool, as i said they were something else at the time.

  Finally, I return from Shetland, about 2 days too late! A fairly notable fall occured in NE scotland, and I was hearing all the news as I was heading towards the ferry in Lerwick! Bugger! As a result, I missed all sorts of goodies on the ness, and elsewhere, including Greenish warblers, and all the other scarce migrants that you might expect. Shetland was a lot of fun.I cant really give any details of the super secret mission, other than to say that it was a rip-roaring flop, but I had a lot of fun all the same. All the usual Shetland goodies were in evidence, but, some more notable sightings included:
      Wood warbler and Pied flycatcher while “working” on the 14th, 4 sightings of Otters, a Green sandpiper by a tiny loch on top of a moorland hill, a Great northern diver while doing some boat surveys, truly spectacular views of the Gannetry at Hermaness from the boat, a Little stint at the pool of Virkie, and many others. Undoubtedly, though, the most exciting moment came on the first day of the boat survey. About half an hour south of Lerwick, I spied a Minke whale breaching. The skipper of the boat killed the engine, and the whale gradually came closer and closer, until it was showing down to about 50 metres! And I thought the views from beatrice were good! I managed to get some respectable photos of it, which will be included here once I've worked out how to put pictures on that aren't the size of billboard posters. Until then, you'll just have to use your imagination.