A perfect morning for survey fieldwork. For the first 3 hours of daylight I re-walked a stretch of coastline counting Black Guillemots. I counted 32 still being a little down on the 38 counted along the same stretch of coast a year ago. It will be interesting to see if Fair Isle and North Ronaldsay register a similar drop in numbers. With the light wind persisting I then covered a lot of ground in the northeast of Unst mainly mapping Curlews, Oystercatchers, Lapwings and Redshank. There's still only a few Snipe displaying as yet. Whilst I did so there were clearly some newly-arrived migrants on the island as I saw a Merlin, a female Wheatear, a Song Thrush, my first 2 Blackcaps of the year including one in song, 8 Chiffchaffs and 2 Bramblings.
Male Blackcap at Haroldswick
Male Brambling at Haroldswick
