New camera day.

 We have had some lovely guests and we have had some lovely chats  This week we have had Judy and Nick stay, we discovered Judy is an amazing sculptor.

Just have a look.

https://judyboyt.com/sculptures/

The time , effort and skill involved in her art is spectacular.

Jill's camera has been struggling for a while with her camera. It is nearly 6 years old and has taken a lot of images for the blog, it was coming to the end of its life as the sensor was playing up.. So, after lots of hard work this summer a new camera was ordered.  Today was the day to cheer Jill up, with her sore ankle and sore toe. It got it's first trip out.  Very impressed! It's a bit more complicated though.

We started at Melby but it was quiet.

As luck would have it there was a showy Greenish Warbler at Grutness. What a little star!

Nice Willow Warbler too

On the way home we popped past Brow Marsh to see if the Pallid Harrier was still around. It was but still very distant. A nice male this time 

The to top it off, a small aurora.

Broken toe and a mega!!

 Interesting few days, which is why there has been no blog. Jill was feeling sorry for herself! 

Last wednesday Jill broke her toe, on the opposite foot from the sprained ankle , which is still niggly.

So ,concentrating on keeping the b and b going, it's been limited to drive by birding. Been some lovely rainbows and sunsets.

We did a run to Virkie for waders, and the willows had a couple of chiff chaffs.

We forgot to check the tide and it was in , so the waders were elsewhere. Couple of bits a Grutness though 

Then we popped back to see the Pallid Harrier at Brow in better light. We got lucky, there were two, terrible photos though as they were very distant.

We did another run to Virkie on Friday in the hopes of seeing the Baird's Sandpiper. The tide was still wrong but we did see some knot, snipe and curlew.

We checked Quendale in the rain and the Orca Inn. We had some more passage birds but nothing showy.

Home via Melby, where the light was lovely on the beach Sanderling and the last few Arctic Terns.

Our friendly Grouse and his family popped up to say hello too 

He is a handsome chap!

While Rob put his drone up at Footabrough, Jill had a very short walk to an old croft. To be rewarded with a very puffy toe! Trouble is need to do some walking or the sprained ankle will seize upm

Today was planned to take it easy as we had some guests checking in. Late afternoon, news broke if a mega. An Egyptian Nightjar had been found by Roger Riddington near his home, at Virkie, again!

We had a bit of a wait before we could leave as we needed to get our guests settled. We didn't leave til just before 7 pm. It was then a race to get a South before dark. We made it, and had about 25 minutes with the snoozing bird before it got too dark.

It's much paler/ sandier than the UK's common nightjar, with pretty chevron patterning and long flight and tail feathers. What a stunner.