September 27th 2014

 

I travelled up from Aberdeen to Kirkwall on the evening ferry, and managed a couple of pomarine skua, manx shearwater and sooty shearwater from the back of the boat before the evening set in.

 

September 28th 2014

 

The main group had made it over on the previous morning, but work pressures meant that I had to travel up to Orkney on the Saturday night before heading over to Sanday on the Sunday. This meant that I missed out on the traditional pre-Sanday meal in Helgi’s on the waterfront in Kirkwall (and the accompanying Orkney IPAs) – but luckily, that was about all I had missed out on as there was no rare bird news coming my way from the guys who were already there.

 

The ferry over on Sunday morning provided the usual great northern divers, long tailed ducks, and tysties, as well as a few large flocks of greylag and wigeon that were flitting from one island to another. Having sustained myself with a heavily microwaved bacon roll or two and a cup of tea, I was ready to hit the ground running when I got picked up at the ferry terminal on my arrival.

 

The first stop was Stove, where migrants included a couple of lesser whitethroats, and a stonechat – our first record for the island, a bird the guys had picked up the day before and a nice little bonus. We then headed on to Laminess where a red-backed shrike did the decent thing by popping up in front of us. Not a bad start! Unfortunately the rest of the day did not follow this lead, with my only other migrant of note being a couple of late house martin. However, it was great to be back on the island and among the birds – with the usual raptors, waders and wildfowl being ample compensation for the lack of rarities. What felt like a ‘quiet day’ to all of us actually looked OK on paper with the shrike accompanied by barred warbler, wood warbler, Lapland bunting, whitefront and a long awaited island tick for us – tree pipit!

 

September 29th 2014

 

Again it was to prove to be a quiet day for migrants (it would prove to be a quiet week for migrants, to be honest...) but the beauty of Sanday is that there is always something to look at – with waders and wildfowl a very worthy distraction, even when there does seem to be a fall on. Waders gave some decent counts: 67 grey plover, 80 black-tailed godwit and 4 ruff being of note, but it was wildfowl that provided the entertainment.

 

In the morning I walked a loop around North Loch, where the first whooper swans had arrived overnight, which is always special to see. North loch hosted a juv brent goose as well, not an easy bird in Orkney, but there had also been a bit of an arrival of ducks. Among the 600 wigeon on the loch were 65 pintail, and best of all, a drake American wigeon – probably the returning bird from last year (and found on exactly the same date, too). Migrants were thin on the ground though and the flocks of golden plover failed to produce any of the hoped for scarce waders.

 

In the afternoon I stayed local around Lady, working the gardens and fields, the mudflats at colliness and ending up watching the waders gather on the rising tide on the Cata sand. There were decent numbers of the usual suspects (barwits, grey plover, dunlin) but the highlight was a vocal yellow-browed warbler that tsooweeted in the garden behind me, and eventually showed well.

 

Raptors included the expected hen harrier, merlin, peregrine and short-eared owl, and other passerine migrants included redstart, whinchat, and brambling, all being new in.

 

September 30th 2014

 

In the morning I walked the loop around the Roos peninsula, picking up small numbers of wildfowl on the loch and marsh, which included 10 shoveler, a couple of hundred wigeon and teal, peregrine, ruff, and a good count of 1200 golden plover. Two redwing were the only migrants of note.

 

In the afternoon I took the longish walk out to tresness, a long sandy peninsula that culminates in a weedy, boggy area that looks brilliant for migrants. On the way out I picked up a little gull, feeding on the seaward side of the dunes, that caused a bit of a stir among the others, as it was our first on the island. On reaching the house towards the end, I had a quick look at 2 weedy piles before heading out towards the marsh. A robin and a blackcap popped up, so I carried on and was soon scanning through the small flocks of teal, wigeon and meadow pipit at the end. A count of 11 grey herons was pretty impressive too. After covering the fields and marshes it was time to head back towards Lady, and I gave the two weedy piles one last look. This time something different flew out, and I got the tell tale tail pattern of a bluethroat as it landed. A short while later it popped out into the open and showed very nicely, if not a little briefly, before diving back into the cover where I let it be.

 

Despite the bluethroat, it still felt like hard going, although there was a wee smattering of redwing and song thrush to keep you on your toes migrant wise – they hadn’t been around the previous day so clearly one or two things had arrived. Yesterday’s whinchat, redstart, and odd lesser whitethroat and garden warbler were still present, and had been joined by 2 new yellow-browed warblers, and a single common rosefinch. Those who didn’t manage to connect with the American wigeon the day before also caught up with that, which was grand as only one person saw it in 2013!

 

October 1st 2014

 

A journey to the southern end of the island first thing, where we checked in with the red-backed shrike, had a few thrushes and common warblers around stove, and found a yellow-browed warbler feeding in long grass on the way up to Warsetter. I got dropped off at the Bae Loch and walked back to lady from here, adding nothing more than a few ruff, blackcap, and noting a few thrushes on the move.

 

After a lunch that mainly consisted of cherry bakewells I headed out to the Cata sand to scan through the waders on the rising tide. In total I had 600 barwits, 80 dunlin, 40 sanderling and 400 golden plover, and the little gull put in another appearance. Again there were thrushes on the go, but little else migrant wise, apart from 12 brambling over.

 

So, another a day with a small arrival of migrants, and a definite feel of later autumn with thrushes and brambling being prominent. Highlights of the day from the rest of the gang were the remaining wood warbler and another new in yellow-browed warbler, and an island first for us, a black redstart, that performed for one lucky guy but was gone when we all tried to twitch it half an hour later!

 

October 2nd 2014

 

The prospect of migrants obviously wasn’t very inspiring as I spent yet another session scanning through and counting waders, this time on the little sea. It was devoid of goodies though, so after a quick check of the Bae loch, I was happy to bump into one of the gang and accept a lift into Kettletoft in search of a mars bar. The ‘boneyard’ here looks good for rares, but it was a lone bush in a garden next door that delivered, with a barred warbler sunning itself nicely, and sitting out in the open in a most un-barred warbler like fashion. We dipped on the mars bars.

 

With very strong southerlies we figured it might be worth one of us having a little seawatch – although we didn’t decide this until late in the day, so I ended up having a seawatch from a pretty terrible location in the afternoon. Still, in 45 minutes or so I managed 9 sooty shearwaters and few arctic skua and great northern diver, so it was worthwhile and showed that with a little more planning seawatching would probably be quite productive. The American wigeon was still present on North loch, with around 900 wigeon, comprising the best part of a whole island count of around 1200. Wader numbers were also high, with decent maxima of 400 dunlin, 2500 golden plover, and 1020 bar-tailed godwit. Still no sign of any American waders though, frustratingly.

 

Other passerines included 140 skylark at the airfield, 67 brambling, and a single snow bunting recorded by the others.

 

October 3rd 2014

 

Another morning looking though waders, another session without success. In the afternoon I returned to do the North Loch loop. Again, wildfowl counts were impressive with North Lochs 900 wigeon and remaining American wigeon being joined by a big bunch of aythyas (almost all tufted duck, but a pochard was nice too) the odd goldenenye and shoveler, and a very handy count of 78 pintail. Waders were a little less productive but a maximum of 82 black-tailed godwit was noteworthy.

 

After this I had a seawatch in the late afternoon from a much better location, at the headland at lopness. In 1 hour 79 sooty shearwaters went past, which I guess is a pretty good count anywhere – and certainly by Orkney standards. If the tides had been suitable for getting out onto Start Point the count would no doubt have been higher – and I suspect a few snuck past in the rather deep troughs given my location, which was pretty much at sea-level.

 

The others had what was presumabely the same little gull was seen in the far SW of the island at Stove, and there was a late arctic tern on the Cata sand.

 

In terms of migrant passerines it was pretty desperate – with nothing more than a single yellow-browed warbler and a couple of whinchat going into the log.

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October 4th 2014

 

The main feature of the day was the weather – it absolutely lashed it down for quite a large portion of the day – long enough for us to decamp to the pub in Kettletoft for an extended lunch at least. It was utterly unbirdable for several hours. The main avian feature of the day was the steady passage of pink-footed geese overhead – with over 4200 counted and certainly more birds passing unnoticed (especially while we were filling our faces with scampi). Along with the pinkies we had our highest ever count of barnacle geese (7) and the stonechat was still in the Stove area – no doubt it was noted as someone had realised they could look for it from the car!

 

Migrant wise it was a bit of a damp squib (a lot of a drenched squib?) with only singles of Lapland bunting and yellow-browed warbler noted.