Up early

 We fancied seeing some puffins today so got up early and headed to Sumburgh Head. The sun was shining and stayed shining all day. Lovely!

En route we got distracted by a busy dog otter fishing right near a bridge. We watched it for about 20 minutes.

Continuing to Sumburgh we could see lots of Razirbills on the sea but only the odd puffin. One did briefly cone to the cliffs though.

There were plenty of twite and Meadow pipits at Sumburgh. 

Grutness beach had 17 purple sandpipers, t Long tailed ducks, 2 Great Northern Divers and lots of turnstones.

At Scatness we had out first Wheatear for the day and a pair of Shelduck.  While we were there , news broke that the Purple Heron was still around. Rob was keen to try again, so, off we went. It appeared from down the burn at Clumlie.

This was a good highlight.

Other sightings got us to 60 species of bird today.

Much excitement when we got home. There was a black tailed godwit on the road home. New garden bird tick, if a bit distant.

Lovely day.