Mark Lew1s
My real name is Mark Lewis
September 6th
It’s almost as if we couldn’t wait. After 14 years of visiting Sanday around mid to late September, we were champing at the bit to get away this year and as such, ended up settling on dates earlier than we’d ever visited before - 6th to the 13th September. This is how I ended up sitting in Aberdeen airport on the 6th, waiting for a fog-bound flight and chatting with a birder en route to North Ronaldsay for a similarly unprecedented early visit.
I was soon on my way and after a breakfast roll with more fillings than one might consider reasonable in Kirkwall airport, I was outside waiting for my friend to pick me up. It was a warm, clear sunny day, but the steady stream of meadow pipits overhead made it feel lovely and autumnal. Once picked up we headed out to the east side of the mainland and were soon birding.
It didn’t take long for things to heat up. While scanning the gulls and waders at the Ouse, a yellow wagtail flew over - a pretty scarce bird up here. Then, after a bird-free stroll around Sandside Bay, we picked up a juvenile tree sparrow at Denwick, which is more of a spring thing in Orkney and is not recorded every autumn. Also here were two whinchat, more evidence of migrants - recently arrived or not, along with a beachful of pied wagtails and some sparkling juvenile sanderling.
On then to meet the ferry after a hasty chipper tea, to chug over towards Sanday. It was lovely, but the birds were not too inspiring, although plenty of fulmar and shag kept us company and loads of black guillemot were on show which is never a bad thing.
We arrived with an hour to spare before dusk and headed to Stove, a large sheltered garden in the far south-west of the island. Here, redstart and robin were migrants, a juvenile water rail was likely to be locally bred, and hen harrier and short-eared owl added the usual background quality. To complete the usual Sanday ambiance, groups of greylags honked overhead, while behind us, we could hear the calls of redshank, dunlin and sanderling as they fed on the large bay. Groups of swallows gathered on the wires and linnets fed in the fields. It was great to be back
We thought we had done OK, but the other team, who made their way up via the Pentland ferry did really well with a spotted redshank at Loch Fleet and then to top that off, a Cory’s shearwater off Noss Head. They also made it over to Sanday in time to re-find the returning long-billed dowitcher at Cleat, and get out over to Start point, where they flushed a corncrake. Some start. Cory’s is a Scottish rarity, so we had fingers crossed that as a team we hadn’t peaked too early….
It’s almost as if we couldn’t wait. After 14 years of visiting Sanday around mid to late September, we were champing at the bit to get away this year and as such, ended up settling on dates earlier than we’d ever visited before - 6th to the 13th September. This is how I ended up sitting in Aberdeen airport on the 6th, waiting for a fog-bound flight and chatting with a birder en route to North Ronaldsay for a similarly unprecedented early visit.
I was soon on my way and after a breakfast roll with more fillings than one might consider reasonable in Kirkwall airport, I was outside waiting for my friend to pick me up. It was a warm, clear sunny day, but the steady stream of meadow pipits overhead made it feel lovely and autumnal. Once picked up we headed out to the east side of the mainland and were soon birding.
It didn’t take long for things to heat up. While scanning the gulls and waders at the Ouse, a yellow wagtail flew over - a pretty scarce bird up here. Then, after a bird-free stroll around Sandside Bay, we picked up a juvenile tree sparrow at Denwick, which is more of a spring thing in Orkney and is not recorded every autumn. Also here were two whinchat, more evidence of migrants - recently arrived or not, along with a beachful of pied wagtails and some sparkling juvenile sanderling.
On then to meet the ferry after a hasty chipper tea, to chug over towards Sanday. It was lovely, but the birds were not too inspiring, although plenty of fulmar and shag kept us company and loads of black guillemot were on show which is never a bad thing.
We arrived with an hour to spare before dusk and headed to Stove, a large sheltered garden in the far south-west of the island. Here, redstart and robin were migrants, a juvenile water rail was likely to be locally bred, and hen harrier and short-eared owl added the usual background quality. To complete the usual Sanday ambiance, groups of greylags honked overhead, while behind us, we could hear the calls of redshank, dunlin and sanderling as they fed on the large bay. Groups of swallows gathered on the wires and linnets fed in the fields. It was great to be back
We thought we had done OK, but the other team, who made their way up via the Pentland ferry did really well with a spotted redshank at Loch Fleet and then to top that off, a Cory’s shearwater off Noss Head. They also made it over to Sanday in time to re-find the returning long-billed dowitcher at Cleat, and get out over to Start point, where they flushed a corncrake. Some start. Cory’s is a Scottish rarity, so we had fingers crossed that as a team we hadn’t peaked too early….