19th - 20th August

It has been a fairly eventful couple of days for birds, with some nice year ticks and an overall good spattering of migrants to keep motivation high. The weather has been teasing us with the occasional easterly, but southerlies and westerlies continue to dominate.

The Little Stint was still present on Ancum on the 19th, but it was otherwise a quiet day with the only other birds of note being a White-winger sp that was seen flying high south from Stromness point, and an acro at Scottigar that initially had us scratching our heads before the bird was caught revealing it to be a Reed Warbler.

The 20th was a much busier day, starting with a juvenile Little Gull seen over the Seal Skerry, presumably the same bird that then came to roost on Bewan in the evening. The second Buzzard of the year was first seen flying over the Links, before heading east inland and spending the rest of the day cruising round over the fields. A moulting adult American Golden Plover was found in the afternoon in the field near Cott, giving good views to all the staff who came to see it. The bird was still present at the end of the day in the same place, so will hopefully stick around for a few days. The American Golden Plover was the bird of the day, but was given some stiff competition by a moulting adult Black Tern seen flying north past Dennishead, and an adult Long-tailed Skua that also flew north on the same sea watch. Also on the sea watch was 179 Sooty Shearwater, 20 Manx Shearwater and 1 Storm Petrel. Elsewhere, a Greenshank was seen on the airfield.

With lots more birds seemingly about on the island, the next few days look good to hopefully bring in some more migrants. We can't complain about how the Autumn has kicked off though, with the year list now standing at 185.

American Golden Plover - GG

American Golden Plover - GG

Reed Warbler - MH