Natural Selection

In the last couple of months I’ve read a couple of new books by Patrick Barkham and Patrick Galbraith. Here are my brief thoughts. I didn’t know Patrick Barkham had released a collection of his newspaper and magazine articles until I saw it in a Didsbury bookshop. I have a backlog of nature books from…

Western Subalpine Warbler by Nathaniel Dargue Introduction There are no resident birders on Out Skerries, so like last year I am doing a review after the last knockings of the autumn. If there are any further notable sightings I will repost an updated version. In the context of ever declining numbers of migrants noted by…

I thought the presumed Pallid Swift might have roosted on the eastern face of St John’s clocktower. I spoke to Jane about it and we agreed I should go and have a look first thing in the morning in case this was correct. I was in St John’s Square at 6.30 for dawn. It was…

Pallid Swift montage by De Ruwe Philip from Facebook There has been an unprecedented influx of Pallid Swifts into Britain in the last four weeks, as birders reading this will know. In the first week I was actually watching the odd one in Porto Santo. The second two weeks I was in Shetland; they got…

The best birding moments should be the ones you’ve prepared meticulously for. In my experience they’re not. They’re the ones that take you completely by surprise. The last of the easterly winds were yesterday. Walking across a random part of North Hill I flushed an Olive-backed or Tree Pipit. It flew from the right of…

I’ve been visiting Skerries annually since 2007. In that time I’ve added three species to the bird list of the island – Savi’s Warbler one spring and then both Firecrest and Pied Wheatear in the awesome October 2017 stay. Today I made that four with an American Golden Plover. American Golden Plover is expected in…

An early start saw an increase in thrushes around Rocklea. The place wasn’t carpeted with them, but there were definitely birds new in. Unfortunately for this blog and fortunately for the birds they were quite lively, having presumably not travelled that far before this landing. When there are thrushes in the geos (i.e. cliffs) can…

The new ‘Golden Retriever’ weather vane at Rocklea showed the winds coming from the south east as forecast. Whilst the ‘fetch’ on these may not have been that great it always augurs well for a day’s birding on here. There were a few thrushes dotted about. These mostly comprised Blackbirds and Redwings, with a few…

After I booked the flights for my autumn birding trip to Skerries the inter-island ferry timetable unexpectedly changed. The upshot was I had a day to kill, and as there had been a King Eider at Scalloway I decided to go there. I’ve only visited Scalloway, the ancient capital of Shetland, very briefly in the…

Jane and I walked up to the golf club from the hotel this afternoon, and sat with cold beers watching the wildlife around the pools. Well first we saw the Hummingbird Hawkmoth above in the car park, perhaps the one that’s been there most of the week. There certainly had been some new arrivals though…