8th October: Lazy Git

The thing I like about these birding trips is that you awake every morning with renewed enthusiasm - wrong. I actually woke at 10am and had to force myself out of bed. Had a bit of a sulk about the current marital situation and threw myself up the lane to Exnaboe. Having gone just a hundred yards I came across the other team of John, Dave and Simon. They were off to sample the head - Sumburgh Head that is, so I invited myself and jumped in with them. The head was very quiet apart from the usual flock of Twite the highlight being a chat with the very lovely Helen.

Twite (M N Reeder)

Our decent down the hill improved with two Lesser Whitethroats and a Chiffchaff. I decided to split from the group and check out the Farm site of last years Bluethroat and proper Arctic Redpoll. The Farm was very very quiet apart from the mad dogs so I continued towards the hotel garden. The marshy area between the farm and hotel produced the first Jack Snipe of the trip as well as many Snipe. The hotel garden was empty so I continued towards Grutness to meet up with the others and have a look at yet another Yellow-browed Warbler, by far the commonest warbler on the islands. After meeting up with Dave and co we returned to the Jack Snipe, which showed well to two of them on the edge of a ditch. Still feeling unenthusiastic I returned to Sunny Dell and sat by the POV (Pool of Virkie) trying to photograph the Killdeer and assorted waders. Spent the rest of the afternoon drinking tea surfing the net and making a huge curry which went down very well. More beer in the Sumburgh followed by a drunken hour discussing the merits of being single. Bed at 1am.