The dawning of the age of aquariums

Nasty nasty drizzle. Drizzly enough to be annoying, but not rainy enough to be raining. The Sedge Warbler know something we don't, perhaps. I've noticed this before, but when it gets wet they take to the trees* - feeding among the wet leaves. Moving to higher ground, if the rain were heavier. Really heavy, they start building arks and taking two of every animal, except cats presumably.

*'trees' - Shetland boys - look them up on Wikipedia. They come in several flavours. 'Trees' are what get in the way of nice views of all those rare Phylloscs. You know how rare Phylloscs actually prefer to bounce around on barbed wire, drystane dykes, in short turf, around cow sheds etc... well on the mainland they are forced to sit in 'trees', and it pisses me off something rotten.

I got a patch tick today! Must tot up my patch list sometime. But while I was trying a quick seawatch, a single Shelduck Tadorna tadorna flew south. Ahhh!!!! long overdue, but there is no habitat for them in the immediate areas (we're all rocks and jaggy sticks). If there is ANY pleasure a human being can experience that fires off more endorphins than an overdue patch tick, I'd like to know about it.

Also on my seawatch... a Great Skua flew past just as I was sitting down. Actually, I'm sure it's not just me, but I'm amazed how often that happens. You turn up at the coast, put your bins up, and there is a skua flying past, and you think 'mmmm... looks decent seawatching today'. Then an hour later it's the only skua you've seen, and you're worrying about all those Phylloscs that must be hiding in the trees. I also saw 1 (count 'em - ONE) Manx Shearwater, nine Red-throated Divers, and 2 Turnstones.
Top tip. NEVER call Great Skuas 'Bonxies'. You can't shag them. Never call Black Guillemots 'Tysties' - you can't eat them.
Sea was calm, with ~200 Guillemots and 200 Razorbills and exactly 42 Puffins sat on the water. Good dolphin=watching day, were there any dolphins.

On the clifftops there was this



clearly a Black Lark....

and this....


a lost racing pigeon feeding on the cliff edge. Is this your pigeon? if so, come and get it PDQ... it's in PEREGRINE country Falco peregrinus. Whohahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!! It's dead meat. OOoohhh OOOhhhh, the peregrines are eyeing up its goolies right now. Run! Run!