Thursday 17th and Saturday 20th May

Irrelevancy lies before me this evening, like a man walking into his garden for the first time after a long illness, like Godzooki and Scrappy Doo fighting to the death for the honour of being the most hated cartoon character of them all.

Thursday:
Beautiful Sedge Warbler displays Thursday morning, and two Willow Warblers checking out nest sites in the gorse next to the Elsick Burn. I'm seeing Roe Deer more or less daily just now, and today was no different with one a point blank range in the bushes by the track. Caught a Song Thrush carrying food to a nest near the white houses by the beach.

A single Great Skua went north in 20 min looking, and 7 Manx Shearwaters, flying close to shore so nearly slipped under the radar. 45 Northern Gannets north, and a single Arctic Tern fishing among a feeding flock of Black-legged Kittiwakes about 500 m off the cliffs. Also 3 spp auks and several Northen Fulmars.


Saturday:
Found this on the track - a dead European Robin, juvvy. I love the way things work in the Real World - no apologies, no excuses, no explanations, no second chances. I couldn't have designed it better myself. Sorry baby Robin, you were just too shit for this life.

Had a leisurely attempt at photographing a Roe Deer on the other side of the burn. Disappointed to ifnd out after I had the phone cam set on lo-res, so have suffered a bit. These are the best...

...unfortunately. Not last one - I call it 'Deer's arse with ?Sedge Warbler blur'.

Offshore... this was funny. I saw 35 Northern Gannets heading south, but the way the light was this morning shining through their wings, they looked weird. Then another flock of 10 came through, and I was thinking that this time it was making them look like shelducks or something then I realised that this was a flock of 10 Common Shelducks. A scarce migrant here. Wake up Martin. 1 Arctic Skua went north, at some lick.