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 #2 - Stromie Nights

During two of the three nights on Shetland I joined the local ringing team on their routine storm-petrel sessions. I was very keen to join because the only previous stormie session I took part in (Spurn August 2008) was minimal with only two birds. So I really wanted to participate in a busy Shetland night session. We worked in RSPB Sumburgh Head, with all necessary permits obtained. The A-Team included Roger, Phil, Will and Paul among some others. Both nights were successsful: first night produced about 140 European Storm-petrels, and the second night about 170. Nights were still pretty short (trapping between midnight and 0300 only) so it was busy and we worked hard. Most of these birds are non-breeders. Interestingly, there was a huge turnover of birds with only two birds retrapped from previous sessions this season. They are lovely wee birds. Little is known about ageing them. I tried to make some sense of the variation in different patterns - more on this to follow.

European Storm-petrel

There was some variety too. On the first night Will heard a Swinhoe's Storm-petrel, but we never caught it. I really enjoyed handling Leach's Storm-petrels. On the first night we caught two, and on the second night another six (equal to Shetland record). They are super birds. So large and powerful compared to the toy Euro Stormies.

Leach's Storm-petrel

Some variation in rump pattern on these too:

I paid a day visit to Sumburgh Head with the family too. Light was harsh but Puffins are always pretty. Great to see so many from up-close.

 

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.

Information on POSSIBLE Swinhoe's Storm-Petrel by Will Miles Sumburgh 31/7/17

I am here on Shetland for a great family holiday. We're having an amazing time with breathtaking wildlife experiences and lovely people. More on this very soon. But first, some POTENTIAL stop-press rarity news. Last night I joined a storm-petrel ringing session on Sumburgh Head. This session was organised by Phil Harris, Roger Riddington, Paul Harvey and Will Miles. At about 01:00 this am, Will Miles heard a Swinhoe's Storm-petrel twice, responding to our playback mix that included swinhoe's. Will is confident that he heard a swinhoe's (just a reminder that Will found and caught the first two on Fair Isle in 2013 so he knows his swinhoe's...). Sadly Will was alone at the net at that moment, and nobody else heard the bird after, nor was it seen (or caught...). So obviously Will is very cautious, yet he is confident he heard a Swinhoe's.
Otherwise it was a good session with about 140 European Storm-petrels and 1 Leach's Storm-petrel.
Will is not big on social media, sadly nor are the other participants... So I am reporting on their behalf.

East Norfolk class of 2017

Went birding with Nick today in East Norfolk. We checked a few sites in unsettled weather - got gloriously wet eventually. Birding was nice but relative highlights were painfully familiar species. Started off at Rush Hill Scrape that was rather empty with high water levels and nothing special.
We arrived at Breydon Water about an hour too late, when the tide was fully up and birds were difficult to see roosting in the tall vegetation. Still great there with large numbers of shorebirds and gulls, including Little Stint, 6 Greenshank, Wood Sand, 1 Barwit, 10 Whimbrel, Grey Plover and 70 Med Gulls. As always, birds at Breydon are very distant. Today the camera stayed in the bag and these photos are phonescoped through Swarovski ATX95.

Part of a 200-strong Avocet flock 

Part of the Med Gull concentration

Before heading back to Norwich we returned to Potter Heigham Marshes. Lovely site but we were somewhat disappointed by the small numbers of short-legged shorebirds. Good to see lots of babies of all sorts - evidently the predator fence did the job. I was never so excited before by two Israeli trash birds - Black-winged Stilts and Cattle Egret. We saw all four baby stilts and one parent; then the egret flew into a tree from a cattle grazing marsh. Boom.

Class of 2017. #4 behind these bushes

Compact-looking Intermediate Heron. Quality

Other highlights were 5 Little Ringed Plover and 3 Garganey. Wow.
Because of the heavy rain few butterflies were on the wing and I don't think I saw a single dragon this morning. Among the more numerous Red Admirals and Painted Ladies we found this female Gatekeeper:

Norfolk rarity

Last night the wind switched to a proper northerly, which means better seawatching conditions. I haven't been out properly for toooooooooooo long, actually since I got back from Iberia, so I was very keen to head out. During the few hours of sleep I dream of albatrosses and Fea's Petrels. I arrived at Cley at 05:00. At first the few birds were disappointingly distant, because the wind had switched to north just few hours earlier. Rather soon I clocked on a Sooty Shearwater - nice, but too distant for a photo. Then birds were pushed closer inshore by the strong wind and there was a nice constant passage of terns and gannets. Albert didn't fly past, nor a pterodroma. Bird highlights of the morning were a Manx Shearwater, Little Gull, 40 Common Scoter and a Guillemot. Sadly I had to leave after a couple of hours - had to get back home for schoolrun. See full list here. After leaving the others had a couple of spoony Poms and a Velvet Scoter.

Sandwich Tern

Gannet and bird choppers

But the true highlight of the morning was an extremely visitor to Norfolk - DIM Wallace who walked into the seawatching shelter in nonchalance, like it's his midlands local patch. Great to see him here, alongside some of Norfolk's finest.