Decade summary #6 - Best of 2015

2015 was my first full year in the UK. I tried to get as much birding done in between family and work commitments, though admittedly much of my birding time was spent on twitching. I didn't develop into a top-class twitcher, though in 2015 I twitched an island for the first time - Great Blue Heron on Scilly:

Another exciting bird was the Acadian Flycatcher in Dungeness - the first for the Western Palearctic.

In March I did a short fieldwork session in Portugal and Spain where I got to spend quality time with my research subject - Great Bustard. 

In 2015 two dear friendships developed and intensified. James Lowen became my partner in crime in many twitches. Scotch eggs, laughs and lots of good birds together. Bessos, James.

I had the honour and privilege to spend a week on Shetland with Martin Garner. Through Martin I met many other lovely people who became my friends too. With winds blowing in the wrong direction for the entire week, birding was hard work, but we did connect with a Shetland specialty, Pechora Pipit, and I found a Blyth's Reed within the first hour of birding on the island.

Highlight of the week was of course the people - thank you Martin for making this happen.

Peter Colston, the late Martin Garner, moi, Paul Harvey and Roger Riddington

Full annual summary here.

Scotland #3 - seabird extravaganza

Back home in Norwich already, but I have some more Scottish tales to tell. On July 31st we went out to sea with my mate Phil from Shetland Seabird Tours. We left Lerwick harbour and headed towards Noss NNR. Phil boat is great - small enough to get close to water level, but sits very well on the water. 

Noss is an impressive rock and has even more impressive gannet numbers - in fact 22,000 pairs breed there. The sea was somewhat choppier than normal but we all did well, especially Libby who fell asleep halfway through the trip...

The gannets there know their duty and showed up when they were invited by Phil. I was so unprofessional and forgot my small lens onshore. At these distances, my 500 was useless, so all these photos were taken with my phone. Phone photos should never be displayed on a computer screen, I know. But all in all they're not too bad I think, for phone photos at least.

Quite a few Bonxies joined the feast too:

As did the local Great Black-backed Gulls:

Most breeding gannets had Masked-Booby-like fluffy chicks still in the nest:

Lots of non-breeders too

Shags, made in 2017

On the way back we stopped for some seabirds away from the cliffs. We encountered some feeding concentrations of puffins and Arctic Terns. Closer views on Sumburgh Head but lovely to see them at sea:

Most Common Guillemots had already left - only few seen

Several Black Guillemots (Tysties) were loafing in the harbour - losing their summer plumage:

 Some more Arctic Terns in the harbour:

And a few Common Eider families: 

Back on land, one of the few Common Terns on Shetland was especially obliging just in the carpark:

Many thanks to Phil for the brilliant tour. Great fun and quality birding. Highly recommended to anyone visiting Shetland. Till next post...

Scotland #1 - Orca Superb

I have a long back-log to catch up with, so without further ado, here we go:

A week ago we left Norwich and started a three day long road-trip to Shetland. We stayed one night with our good friends in Filey, Mark and Amity. A quick morning birding session at some of Filey's best wetlands produced, well, not too much. Merlin was a good local bird 😊 And Mark was really impressed by eBird. Bird recording is actually great!

After another day on the road we stayed overnight in Edinburgh. Then another short ride to Aberdeen, to catch the ferry across to Lerwick. Beautiful weather made staying on the deck pleasant, for a while until the kids demanded food. There were Bottle-nosed Dolphins and Harbour Porpoises in the bay, some Goosanders, Kittiwakes etc. 

We were extremely lucky with the weather during our entire stay on Shetland. After we left the ferry and drove down south to our hosts in Sumburgh, we became aware of an Orca pod heading south from Lerwick along the coast. When we got to Roger and Agnes's. it was soon time to head out and intercept them on the nearby headland. 2 minutes walk from the house, 3 minutes wait and - boom! Orcas spotted. They swam in extremely close in, hugging the coast, into the smallest inlets, searching for seals. Adrenalin was rushing. Cameras were clicking. What a fantastic show. So much more impressive compared to the distant views I had in Vancouver last year.

It was a group of four individuals - a huge bull, a female he seems to fancy in recent times, another female and a cub. The bull is well known here - his local name is Busta. He's been seen in Shetland for about 20 years now. This pod travels regularly between Shetland and Iceland.

At first we all watched them from a small hill overlooking the bay, but quickly I deserted my parental duties and scrambled down a cliff to get closer to water level. They passed so close to me. I heard them breath. They splashed water with their tails (to disorientate seals) and I felt the spray. Simply breathtaking.

This fin means BIG TROUBLE 

Tasty Tystie snack in the background

Tail splashing

They passed so close to shore, searching for seals hiding in the tiniest crevices, practically climbing on rocks:

 

Before heading off south they started jumping our of the water together, apparently just for fun. Incredible.

Flipper

Then they toured the entrance to Pool of Virkie, right by the airport. They were enjoyed by many admirers on Sumburgh head too, before heading up north along the west cooast.

We were so fortunate to encounter Orcas barely two hours after landing on Shetland, and even more by experiencing in such intensity. Simply one of my best wildlife experiences ever. Wow. It's been almost a week since, but Adrenalin is still rushing when I go through my photos.

More spectacular Shetland experiences to follow soon, so stay posted.