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| Photo courtesy Dave Willis |
News broke just before 1pm today of an adult male Collared Flycatcher at Sumburgh Head lighthouse. We'd been birding at Skaw, pretty close to the most northern part of Scotland. Not many birds about except for a flock of 20/30 Snow Buntings briefly. Upon heading back to base at Baltasound the info arrived.
Fortunately, the timing was good because we were able to make the 1.30pm ferry from Unst (Belmont) to Yell (Gutcher). We made good time and had a short wait before the 2.15pm ferry from Yell (Ulsta) to the Mainland (Toft). All the way was rain & at times a very low cloudbase. We arrived on site at the southernmost point in Shetland about 4pm in clear skies & made the short uphill walk from the lower car park to the lighthouse compound.
The Collared Flycatcher was on view immediately upon arrival in the compound on the left just before the lighthouse, feeding in typical flycatcher fashion & using some fencing, ropework & metalwork to sally forth only a few yards from our vantage point. Excellent views for the whole time we were on site. There were also three Yellow-browed Warblers present & at one point all three & the Flycatcher were perched in a line on the same section of fencing.
Managing to make the requisite ferry timings on the return trip, we arrived back on Unst just after 7pm.
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