7th and 8th June
A glorious day with light
NE winds and wall to wall sunshine on the 7th; certainly, the day’s
highlight was a very scruffy and tatty BLACK KITE which
flew north over Brides, up to the lighthouse from where it spiralled up and
continued of to the north – it was seen on Fair Isle a couple of hours
later. It was identified as the eastern
race bird that has been seen sporadically on Orkney, possibly since last
November and has been labelled ‘of suspect origin’ due to the heavy abrasion on
both the wings and tail but who can tell....anything more than that is pure speculation!
As the Obs crew were chasing the Kite up the island
an Osprey came in from the north and flew south
down the centre of the island – a late spring record and the first of the year
but the rest of the day proved to be pretty quiet as waders included 91
Sanderling, 5 Black-tailed Godwits, 68 Bar-tailed Godwits, a Whimbrel, 2 Golden
Plover and 34 Knot and landbirds just comprised 6 Collared Doves, a Blackcap
and 5 Chiffchaffs.
Still very calm on the 8th with a very
light NE breeze but there was complete cloud cover for a change; the cloud
cover seemed to drop a few new migrants into the island with a Marsh Warbler near the Obs the highlight along with 7 Collared Doves and
single Whitethroat, Garden Warbler, Blackcap, Willow Warbler, Siskin and Common
Redpoll.
Other little bits included our first Common Scoter of
the year which flew past the seawatch hide with 3 Great-northern Divers and 4
Red-throated Divers remaining on calm seas.
Scruffy looking Black Kite Simon Davies
Marsh Warbler Simon Davies
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