Incoming!

Sunday morning was spent birding Fetlar with hopes of another PG Tips. When that failed to show, the rest my time was spent looking around the rest of the island! Highlights for me were the many Lapland Buntings, including a flock of 11+ on the East side. Other birds included Redstart, NW Redpoll, Reed Bunting, Spotted Flycatcher and loads of common migrants...

Today was spent in South Yell. Still loads of common migrants around including hundreds of Redwing, many Goldcrests and Blackcaps etc, and a rather nice juv Peregrine which perched on an over head wire... My third in three days!

juv Peregrine;

Goldcrest... Great wee birds, but just too active for photography!

Another migrant that has unexpectedly hit Yell in vast numbers is the Raven! In one small area of moorland there was over a hundred today! No signs of any obvious food source to attract such a large gathering, and they weren't here yesterday.

'corax' karaoke?

Recorded this Raven on Yell today. Now the unusual thing about this bird, is the fact he seems to be trying to do the corvid version of karaoke. All the clicks etc are coming from the same bird!



Apart from vocal corvids. Today had me checking various areas, and produced; 1 Yellow-browed Warbler, 18 Barnacle Geese, 1 Pied Flycatcher and lots of Siskin, Brambling, Chaffinch, Blackcaps etc... Not too bad, but there must be a good 'Yank' out there somewhere!

Raven's

After getting such close photos of adult Ravens a while back, I though I'd turn my hand to photographing the young (Though not the young of the previously photographed birds).

They look quite dopey compared to the fearsome look of the adult birds, which were hanging about in the background all the time... These birds are making the local rabbit population quite nervous...

Close up and personal

I find Ravens to be one of the harder birds to photograph, as they are normally very wary, and take flight at the least disturbance! and if I photograph them in flight, I end up with just a bird that looks like a silhouette! So I was particularly glad to find a pair that not only weren't wary, but really couldn't give a toss that I was only 15 feet away (in a car)... The sun was out, so even I couldn't fail to get some decent results as they hunted Rabbits!