Hermit thrush, North Uist

Just back from a rushed, ferry schedule limited twitch for the Balranald Hermit thrush. I travelled over via the Isle of Skye and ferry from Uig yesterday- saw the bird for 30 minutes or so in the company of Al Mcnee and Bob Mcmillan, then dashed down the road to get a bed in the Howmor hostel. This wee thrush was a delightful bird and my second 'Catharus' of the autumn! With the 'mega alert' going off for tran-satlantic birds from Barra to Orkney it has been a manic 36 hours but in the end it was obvious that I could only twitch one of them being on a limited budget and with limited time.  An hour of birding this morning turned up grey plovers at Kyles Paible and storm petrels in the Minch which rounded the trip of nicely. I just tuned out the alerts concerning the chimney swift and grey-cheeked thrush at the extremities of the Hebridean archipelago and just had a word with myself about being satisfied with one really good bird! 

Gairloch pelagic- the Minch.

A boat trip in the Minch is always fun and with recent reports of Orcas and Sabines' gulls to whet the appetite I jumped at the chance of a place on the Hebridean whale cruise 'Orca 1'- a large fast RIB designed to cover big distances at speed. The weather and sea conditions were ideal- flat calm with good visibility although the light was very flat due to the hazy conditions. Within 15 minutes of setting sail we were surrounded by a pod of circa 500 common dolphins that obligingly played around the vessel providing outstanding views. A short while later we watched a minke whale- the first of 5 encountered during our trip. Harbour porpoises seemed to be every where. Birds were not as abundant as I had hoped but we recorded sooty shearwaters, manx shearwaters, an arctic skua, a possible long-tailed skua and 3 pomarine skuas. Great skuas were abundant as were over 50 storm petrels. Unfortunately no orcas or Sabs. were seen but we also saw a pair of bonus white-tailed eagles on the return leg and a flock of 28 black-throated divers. 

sooty shearwater

sooty shearwater

common dolphins

common dolphin

common dolphins

minke whale

white-tailed eagle

Pelagic away day

fulmar

Although the start of June is not the ideal time for a spot of sea watching, the current nature of terrestrial birding locally meant that there was little to lose in spending a day at sea and besides, a return sailing on the Ullapool-Stornoway ferry route is usually an enjoyable experience even with few birds to be seen. As expected, low numbers of all the commoner species were encountered, plus bonus birds of 10+ great skuas, 2 arctic terns and a solitary storm petrel pushing my year list up to 149. A minke whale 15 minutes out of Stornoway and a couple of harbour porpoise in the Ullapool approaches added to the enjoyment.

razorbill

arctic tern

gannet

guillemot