18th-19th July - Long-tailed Skuas
As you may have already if you follow us on Twitter this post is going to be dominated by Long-tailed Skuas. The last two days have not only been highly educational for the wardening team but highly enjoyable too. This all started with a text from Dante saying he had two, then three 2nd Calendar Year Long-tailed Skuas on Tor Ness following a lone bird the day previous. I have to say I was skeptical to say the least
Common Crossbill GG
"Surely he's just got himself carried away" I said to Gavin in the car on the way up to Tor Ness.
I was wrong.
Once we arrived we could see three birds buzzing around Dante's head as he looked on, awestruck with the situation he found himself (Who wouldn't?!). This was all added to when a further two birds joined the fray and the now five strong party of Long-tails headed out over the fields, presumably hunting, before coming back onto Tor Ness.
This seemed unprecedented, 2CY Long-tailed Skuas simply shouldn't occur in the UK, they should be off coastlines in the Southern Hemisphere and there certainly shouldn't be a flock of them in British waters at this time of year. This seems to have been echoed throughout social media platforms, simply put...it's weird. Most sightings of 2CY birds seem to occur pelagically, for example most sightings from the Scilly Pelagics trips are of a similar age.
Over the two days we've had at least seven birds, plus a couple of birds on Papa Westray all of which have been photographed. We need to go away now and write all this up, see if we can work out how many birds we've had and then do some extra digging into why this might have happened. Whatever comes of it, it's been a superb experience for all of us, they aren't birds that we're hugely familiar with so being able to study them extensively has been a privilege that none of us will forget anytime soon.
In the brief moments we've managed to tear ourselves away from the Skuas the cut fields have dragged in a good few Gulls and Waders, the highlights of which were a flock of 55 summer plumaged Black-tailed Godwits and a 1st Summer Little Gull to add to the adult that's been hanging around.
The lochs have also dragged in Waders, the highest count of Dunlin for the year with a total of 520 birds mixed in with Oystercatchers and a few Redshank.
On the land both days have produced four Crossbills, one of which found its way into T4 and two showed superbly in the surgery garden. Elsewhere the Stonechat was still below school as was a Woodpigeon.
Long-tailed Skua (bottom) and Arctic Skua (top). GG
Long-tailed Skua. GG
Long-tailed Skua. GG
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