You will remember, from the last post, I was last seen at the standing stone on Unst imploring the Birding Gods to send some rares to Shetland, So waking to news of a Bluethroat within striking distance was no surprise!! Although all the other good stuff was mainly was on outlying Islands that I couldn't get to!! Should of been more specific in my begging I suppose!😀 So we headed south to the Sumburgh Farm for that was where the bird was located, unfortunately we couldn't find where to park so headed down the road to Grutness with a view to walking up from there.
We scanned the sea, pool and rocks at Grutness first obvs, couldn't find anything rare but was a bit about!
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| 2 CY Great Black-backed Gull |
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| Adult Common Gull |
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| Adult Great Black-backed Gull |
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| 2 CY Common Gull |
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| Redshank |
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| Lapwing |
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| Meadow Pipit, though I'm equally impressed with the Lichen on the post |
We started to walk up towards the farm, but at the end of the road got distracted by the beach and the hoards of waders feeding in the Seaweed, Turnstones, Dunlin and Sanderling in the main but also a couple of Purple Sandpipers as well!!
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| Purple Sandpiper |
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| Sanderling with two Purple Sands |
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| Purple Sandpiper |
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| Dunlin |
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| Sanderling |
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| Turnstone |
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| The Beach by Margie |
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| Sumburgh Airport by Margie |
There were also Terns feeding close into the beach and a Red-throated Diver in the bay!
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| Red-throated Diver |
At this point two Arctic Skuas flew across the bay, one dark and one pale phase, probably my two that I've seen regularly, in this case familiarity doesn't breed contempt, stunning birds!
However all this good stuff wasn't finding us a Bluethroat so we carried on, until Margie got distracted by a baby Shetland Pony!! Typical Margie😂!!
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| Shetland Pony and Foal by Margie |
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| Plane by Margie |
We then realised it was quite a bit further to the farm than we thought, so decided to head back to the car!! At this point we bumped into the local birder again, think his name was Richard, who I also think had found the Bluethroat!! He was photographing a Redstart which I just glimpsed as it flew over the wall! He gave us a few more tips where to look and crucially that we could park in the Sumburgh Hotel near the farm, Hurrah!
We duly parked in the hotel grounds and walked the road leading to the farm, sadly no Bluethroat along the wall ,nor Black Redstarts around the chalets a case of you should have been here 4hrs ago!😏😢!!
At this point Margie spotted the Jarlshof Monument, and despite the fact, this holiday we had already seen a Water Mill, Viking Longhouse and Longship, she insisted we go in, how I ever find enough time for birding I will never know!!😁😁😁
To be fair it was quite an interesting walk around, been a settlement for several thousand years, with archaeology from a lot of the different eras, also there was a Wheatear, a Shetland Wren and the site was right next to the sea so was able to tear myself away from the history and scan for Seabirds!! I did however climb the tower as is compulsory on these occasions!! Some of mostly Margie's pics below!
Lot of history there!!
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| Wheatear at the Jarlshof |
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| Common Gull flying by |
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| Bonxie |
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| Shetland Wren |
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| Fulmar |
We dragged ourselves away!! I didn't literally drag Margie away but it was touch n go!! 😀😀 Needing the toilet we popped back into Grutness, a couple of birders were scanning intently, they had just seen the Bluethroat, or rather one of them had, her rather disgruntled partner had missed it!! We scanned the shallow ditch it had disappeared into intently but couldn't be found, I headed back down the road a little, a movement further down the road caught my eye and a cracking male Bluethroat of the red spotted variety popped out from down by the wall, posed for a few seconds on a small rock, flew out onto the scree, had an altercation with a Meadow Pipit and promptly disappeared, the now even more disgruntled other birder missed it again!! Thems' the breaks!!
Cracker, there was also a nice male Wheatear, some Ringed Plover and a couple of Shetland Bees which are very orange!!
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| Ringed Plover |
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| Wheatear |
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| Redshank |
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| Shetland Bee |
We decided, with the Bluethroat not returning that we would have lunch at Loch Clumlie in the hope of connecting with the elusive Long-tailed Skua, as we arrived, the bird flew along the ridge in all it's Long-tailedness giving reasonable views but promptly flew over the ridge!! Hadn't even got the camera out😢 I confidently predicted it would return!! It didn't!!!😢 However not all gloom and doom, all the usual good stuff was present, RT Divers, Whooper swans, Bonxie washing, Arctic Terns washing, Common Gulls washing, the best though was a dark phase Arctic Skua which came in and had a wash just 30ft away, unfortunately by this time the light, which had been good all morning had gotten worse so the pics are a bit dark!!
What a fantastic variety of birds. Is the bluethroat a visitor or do they breed there?
ReplyDeleteHi Denise, Bluethroat is very much a Migrant, lucky to see it!! Yes plenty going on in Shetland in the spring especially if you like Seabirds, which I do!!
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