Dropped our guest at the ferry

 Our guest, Ed, visited Papa Stour today so we got him to the ferry for 9am. The weather is still good, so although we have things to do at home, we visited a new woodland near Gott for some more Northern Long tailed tits. There were another 4!

It took a while to find them as they weren't actually in the wood. They were in the gardens the other side of the loch.

Still too cute. There were 22 Goldcrests  2 Brambling, 3 Chaffinches, 2 Chiffchaffs and 2 crossbills in or around the wood.

Nearly  forgot, we had a big flock of Fieldfare on the way with a mistlethrush flying around with them.

Then we went for the Steppe Grey Shrike at Spiggie. Best pictures ever- Not!

On the way home we had quite a few redwings. We picked up Ed from the ferry at 4.15pm.

The app for auroras said it could be good tonight so Jill went out early. It didn't do very much but it was cold out there.

Blog 1001

 It doesn't seem possible, but it is! Looking back, the blog is full of some amazing wildlife and people who have helped, and people who haven't. New friends and old friends and lots of good times and memories. Thank you Shetland.

To make it a good day- we had a visitor. We always love to see a Robin in the garden but don't seem many. There are obviously quite a few passing through at the moment.

We collected our new guests from the bus and just popped out locally as Rob had a Dr's appointment. We didnt go far but found our large group of Jackdaws again plus 2 Rooks new for our patch.

One of the advantages of the clocks changing is it gets darker early so you don't need to wait up so long to get the Aurora.

Tonight was definately chilly and it wasn't a very active sky but it was a good green one

Nice!

When the sunshines....

 We got out. Now the days are shorter if the sunshines we drop everything to go out and as we have no guests until tomorrow..... and our internet is still non existant

Going via town, we dropped some bits to the tip and checked tescos, totally forgetting there have been no ferries. Yup, the shelves were empty. We will have to manage without bananas for breakfast!

There was no real plan. We checked our Kergord first. It might only be a small wood but there were 6 Robins, 8 male blackcaps, at least 16 goldcrests, 3 chiffchaffs, 2 chaffinches and loads of blackbirds.

We drove to Hoswick and checked the Orca inn far park. Added Redpolls  and lots more blackbirds.

Quendale just added a Waterrail but it disappeared quickly and didn't want to be photographed.

Then it was over the top towards boddam to see some thrushes and ducks.

We managed to add a distant Slavonian Grebe at Tingwall loch