Dam it's cold... Part 2

In the last few days, South Yell has seen temperatures just below freezing, with quite heavy snow fall and bitterly cold winds. This weather combination has made birding less enjoyable, and more of a challenge! But as always I'm up for a challenge, and I've been out and about (dragging my poor dog behind me as well!) and still managed to see a few nice birds (for this time of year!... any birds are good). Highlights for me are the 2 Mealy Redpolls, 1 Water Rail, 13 Bar-tailed Godwits, 3 Robins and 'strangely' 7 Pheasants!!!

This Water Rail was quite confiding, but the light was crap, so shutter speeds were down to as low as 1/50th sec, and the iso between 800/1600... not ideal, but still managed some semi-decent results!

Not Waxwings...

A small arrival of 6 Mealy Redpolls were the best South Yell could muster today. Not the Waxwings I was hoping for! The first Redpoll was very pale, but not pale enough unfortunately! All pics were taken with a 200mm lens (due to my 500mm still away getting fixed), and not a lot of cropping. Just shows how confiding these wee birds can be...

A confiding pale 'Mealy';

Over and under the tail;
A darker typical looking 'Mealy';

Oh no!.... not more Crossbills!

Spent today on the Mainland of Shetland, with the hope that there might be some good birds about! but the only ones I managed to find were a couple of flocks of Crossbills, and a very scruffy Redpoll...

The Crossbills were found at Sullom and at Kergord, with the three birds at Sullom proving to be the usual '4E' vocal type that seems to be the norm up here lately... but the Kergord birds were the scarcer '1B's that I've only found 3 times before in Shetland!

The pic and sound clip are of the '4E' birds...

The sound clip also contains Siskin and Curlew calls;

Now we do get quite a few different species and sub-species of Redpoll up here! but this rather scruffy looking individual seems to be in heavy moult, and even has only two fully grown tail feathers. Does anyone care to comment on race?

Migrants

but not many!

Well it didn't take me long to score my first migrants on my return to the local patch. Both Common Sandpiper and Mealy Redpoll made it worth while today.