Monday 3 October 2016

Shetland - day 4

Rubbish.

Barely saw a bird and didn't take a single worthwhile photo. Charts, shmarts. Given the previous day's arrivals we tried east - Lunna, Swining, Vidlin, Nesting. Piss all. Ten Yellow-browed Warblers and a tragically twitched Barred Warbler. You know when you twitch a Barred Warbler on Shetland in October that you're lowering the bar, and boy did we scrape the barrel today. That said we did not stoop as low as the bloke who ran for it. As somebody called it I could see what was about to happen and said "oh please don't run..." but unfortunately he did. He then followed this up with a commando roll underneath a fuchsia bush in the [vain] hope of a killer view. Full marks for enthusiasm, zero marks for decorum. That said it was a ridiculously slow day in the face of wondrous weather charts, with almost nothing being found. A true Shetland soul-sapper that unfortunately does happen from time to time, and when you least expect it.

Tomorrow could be the same (probably), or completely amazing (unlikely). Team YBW score is up to 69, with my total 38. When one of the guys calls Yellow-browed I tend to fail to break into a run, and a commando roll sliding under a bush for that make or break view would be unheard of. I wouldn't say it's apathy exactly as they're super little birds, but you can have enough of a good thing. Here's a photo I took yesterday. Mega.




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