11th October. Deflating.

Pulling back the curtains and seeing a small party of Redwing had to be a good omen . A quick breakfast and Andy and I were out. A couple of Robins in the garden and more Redwings, Andy headed off towards Toab and I in the direction of the crop behind Sunnydell. The wind had started to shift from southerly to easterly and the sun was coming out to entice all those hungry passerines. Within twenty minutes I had bagged a new in Bluethroat, a male that perched up briefly on the neeps. At least two Willow Warblers were flycatching and a bunting halfway down the spuds and into the sun cried out Little but it vanished and the subsequent two Reed Bunt's did nothing for my confidence. Three further laps of this large crop revealed nothing in fact I had no further sign of the Bluethroat or the Willow Warblers.


Andy was busy working the Toab gardens and had good numbers of migrants including a Redstart though by the time he had left most of the migrants had moved on. By 11:00hrs South Mainland was eerily quite and frustratingly areas north were turning up the goods with new Pechora and Blyth's Reed Warbler. With this in mind we moved slightly further north to Levenwick. Totals here were slightly better with 3 Yellow-browed Warblers, 2 Ring Ouzel and several Chiff's, Goldcrest and Robin. Hoswick next where the Blyth's Reed failed to show with just another Yellow-browed as poor consolation. A report of a Spotted Sand' at Quendale was annoying as we had planned to go there first but figured the 'nice guys' would already be covering it. Deflated we headed back south and spent the remaining good light around Sumburgh Farm where we managed to see someone else's Little Bunting and find nothing of note for ourselves.

The lesson learnt today is that not only can't we find our own birds we can't find anyone else's either.