Of Birds & Cake the Blog of Paul: Holiday day 4 08/05/22: Eshaness Lighthouse

Our second day on the Islands, The lack of sleep and the long journey caught up with us so we had a bit of a lay in so consequently we were a bit late up, 😴 We had decided to head up to Eshaness Lighthouse based on recommendations online, confirmed by our host. The journey north west was very enjoyable, as we got closer, many of the small Lochs held pairs of Red-throated Divers and the moors around had numerous, Oystercatchers, Curlew, Lapwings, Greylags with Common Gulls on some of the roadside pools. We stopped occasionally to try for pics.

Red-throated Diver, they always seem to contrive to be on the far side of whatever pool I find them on😢

Curlew, lovely to hear their calls and see them displaying!

Greylag flyover

Curlew action

Oystercatcher

Common Gull

Me in action!

We arrived, the weather was sunny, but boy was it windy, I decided to try and not get blown off the Cliffs!! On the road in I had spied a couple of Red-throated Divers on a Loch, with the lie of the land I felt with my famous ninja like approach skills😅, I may be able to get close to them, however Margie wanted to find the famous blowhole, I pointed out the Blowhole had probably been there for a few million years and would likely still be there in a couple of hours whereas the Divers could fly off at any minute!! We decided to split up!! 😲 ( Margie would like to point out that we had already seen several RT Divers by this point and that we didn't "decide to split up" but that I walked off while she was talking to me😲!!)

I headed down towards the loch, the lawn like grass all around held a few Ringed Plovers and the odd Wheatear, using the lie of the land I got to the edge of the loch !! Yeah you guessed it the Divers were at the farthest point away from me!! Dagnabit!! For the next 10 minutes we played the game where I nonchalantly, using the if I don't look at them they won't notice me technique, edged slowly around the loch, while the Divers without acknowledging my presence, giving no indication they had seen me, effortlessly kept the distance between us!! denied!! I got a few pics!

Fly over Red-throated Diver, not one of my two!

Ringed Plover

Red-throated Diver

The elusive pair

At this point, I was about to give in, when I heard a commotion behind me getting closer, a Bonxie coming in low, being seriously harassed by a posse of unlikely allies, two Common Gulls, an Oystercatcher, a Ringed Plover and a Lapwing, it was absolute carnage!! I have come to the conclusion that no one likes Bonxies, though I suppose if you go around eating critters eggs and babies your not gonna make many friends!!😲 The posse eventually drove the Bonxie into the water about 10 feet in front of me, where it proceeded to have a wash!! I filled me boots!! Whoop!

Oystercatcher vs Bonxie

Going in for the kill!

Common Gull vs Bonxie

Lapwing vs Bonxie

Common Gull vs Bonxie little bit blurred but you can judge the ferocity of the attack

Having a break, no one likes him, he don't care!!

Common Gull victory roll

The attack didn't stop just cos the Bonxie was down

In all the action I had lost track of the Divers, they however were not happy with a Bonxie on their Loch and were also coming in for a look, ignoring the presence of a slightly overweight birder, I'm pretty sure one them launched an attack from under the water as the Bonxie gave a start and flew off giving a very strange look at the water below him! The result of this confusion was the Divers were at my end of the lake, hurrah!!

Cue rather too many pics, such elegant birds in their beautiful summer plumage

Superb action all round!! Eventually the Divers came back to their senses and headed to the far side of the Loch!

I decided to track down Margie and see how She had got on looking for the Blowhole, I spotted her on the ridge and set interception course!

Meeting up with Margie, I found that despite walking the length and breadth of the Cliffs she had failed to find the Blowhole😢 This was possibly my fault, hints were made about abandonment, luckily I have a thick skin and was extremely happy with the action, so I was able to ignore these subtle but outlandish accusations, we tracked back along the cliff and across the grassland, where to cut a long story short I found the Blowhole in no time at all!! To make matters slightly worse Margie had a bit of a stumble and had grazed her knee, this was also my fault as I had told her to be careful!!!😲

Black Guillemot

Fulmar

Rock Pipit

Ringed Plover

Flyover RT Diver

Razorbills

Great Black-backed Gull always wary of these around cliffs since one made a determined effort to kill me on Noup Head Westray a few years ago!😱

Wheatear

Margie ignoring the pain, as she fills her boots at the Blowhole!

The Blowhole by Margie unfortunately the tide wasn't right to see it in action

The Injury😢

Mind you Margie hadn't been idle during her search and had achieved some excellent pics of the scenery.

We headed off, North of the lighthouse, as you do we walked far to far along the cliff, which we only realised when we turned round to return and found it was in to the very strong wind and uphill!!

I managed a brief Seawatch from the cliff top, which was quite productive and included fabulos views of a Bonxie taking down a Gannet which I blogged about a couple of days ago see the post at the link,it was spectacular action, that the Gannet was lucky to survive!

Bonxie vs Gannet

Couple of Arctic Skuas went through, lots of Gannets, Fulmars, Shags and Auks, including several Puffins

Heavily cropped look how far we walked!!😢

Puffins

A bit of the Bonxie/Gannet action

Meanwhile Margie was getting pics of the scenery and some hunk she spotted seawatching!!😃

The Scenery was really spectacular

Gannet

Herring Gull

We eventually made it back to the car, where we ate our sandwiches while being entertained by a couple of Ringed Plovers in the car park!

Ringed Plover

Slightly revived, and despite the worsening weather I decided to do another quick Seawatch. Margie electing to stay in the car! Not as productive though about 5 Bonxies going through in the half an hour was a reasonable return!