Our flight to North Ronaldsay wasn’t until late afternoon, which meant we
had almost a full day on Mainland, Orkney.
We didn’t make a particularly early start and left the hotel at around
08:45 and made the short drive to the Peebie Sea where we found well over 100
summer plumaged Long-tailed Ducks and a couple of Common Terns.
Pair of Long-tailed Duck at Peebie Sea
Common Tern at Peebie Sea
From Kirkwall we headed northwest along the coast to reach the moorland
area and then headed northeast to the RSPB reserve at Cottascarth, which is a
prime site for Hen Harrier. We came off
the main road along a by-road and through a farm yard to reach the parking area
for the reserve. There is no manned
visitor’s centre at the site but there is a rather spacious building, which
serves a dual purpose of an information point and hide.
As we walked from the car park towards the hide we soon saw a couple of
female Hen Harriers, which were joined by a male for a short while, but it
eventually disappeared. The females
appeared to be holding territory and the closer of the two could be heard
calling as it circled above its presumed territory, keeping the other female at
bay. We had some superb views of this
female and I was able to get some nice shots of it as it circled directly
above. A truly memorable experience of a
wonderful but persecuted raptor, which thankfully are safe on Orkney.
Female Hen Harrier
Female Hen Harrier
Female Hen Harrier
Female Hen Harrier
Female Hen Harrier
Female Hen Harrier
Female Hen Harrier
There was a Common Cuckoo calling but we failed to find it but there were
several European Stonechats in the area and surprisingly a Northern Fulmar
soaring overhead.
We eventually left the reserve and headed for Evie, where a comfort break
produced a Red-breasted Merganser and a Great Northern Diver. Nearby at Burgar Hill Wind Farm there is a
hide that overlooks Lowrie’s Water, where a pair of Red-throated Diver are
usually present. We parked near the wind
turbines and went into the small hide to view the loch and found one of the
divers at the far end, but the light wasn’t great and although it did come a
little closer I wasn’t successful in getting even a record shot. We had another ring-tailed Hen Harrier
quartering behind the loch and a Great Skua was also observed but other than a
lot of Greylag Geese there wasn’t too much else and we eventually moved on.
As we were driving back down the road to Evie I saw a falcon, which
appeared to perch on a post but as Mark stopped the bus it flew from behind a
mound and then rather conveniently landed in the field and we were able to see
that it was a female Merlin.
Female Merlin
We continued down the road and then went over Birsay Moor and on reaching
the western edge had two more female Hen Harriers and a male that performed
rather well but was a little too distant to photograph. There was also a Stonechat and a couple of
distant Twite.
We then went to The Loons, which is a lowland marshy area where there is
a hide that overlooks the northwest area.
We had a Little Grebe on the water and a Common Chiffchaff was observed
in the bushes just to the left of the hide.
A further stop overlooking a different area produced a Wheatear near the
Listening Wall and on the marsh, we found a pair of Northern Pintail and three
Black-tailed Godwits.
We had nice views of a male Stonechat at the Ring of Brodgar and close by
on Loch of Harry there was a nice party of wildfowl, that included 100+ Greater
Scaup, three Common Goldeneye, a female Goosander and forty-nine Red-breasted
Mergansers and there was also three Great Skua bathing on the water. On the other side of the road there were
three more mergansers and two more Common Goldeneye.
Ring of Brodgar
Male Stonechat
It was now approaching our flight time for North Ronaldsay and we made
our way to the airport. Check-in was
simple and quick as there were only seven passengers on the plane, which was a
Britten Norman Islander, a rather small twin-engine prop aircraft. The flight was only about twenty minutes and
we were flying at about 1000 ft, which gave an excellent view of the islands as
we passed over them.
After transferring our gear into our island minibus, we drove the short
distance to the observatory where we were staying during our four-night
stay. After settling in we met for
dinner where we had our first Arctic Skua over Nouster Bay. After dinner we went for a walk down to
Nouster Bay and saw four Eider, a Gannet, two Common Ringed Plover, thirty
Sanderling, four Purple Sandpiper, six Snipe and a Black Guillemot.
No comments:
Post a Comment