13h October. The Last Post

Last full day today meant we were full of good intentions about getting out early and finding us a rare. Sadly the weather had other ideas. Strong south easterly wind and heavy rain greeted us. Never the less we soldiered on as best we could. Firstly checking the crop behind Rob's house and then giving the Sumburgh area a thorough going over. All this effort, in pissing down rain, gave us the sum total of nothing of interest. Depressed and wet we returned to Sunnydell to get dry and refuel.

We decided that the only way to rescue the day was to try and clear up on the remaining south Mainland 'rares' namely Western Bonelli's and the Spotted Sandpiper at Quendale. Fortunately the former showed immediately saving us from a soaking, however the latter required the use of legs so it was inevitable we were going to get soaked again. The Spotted Sand' had returned to it's favourite spot after, apparently being flushed several times yesterday and at first seemed to be particularly wary though it eventually settled down in front of us. The following 'image' was taken with my 'prosumer' SLR hand held at 1600 ISO which is why it is shit!