Thursday 1 November 2018

Of Buntings and Finches

Numbers of Snow and Lapland Buntings were relatively low this year with only a scattering of Laplands and smaller flocks of Snow's. Of the Lapland Buntings only the bird at the Setter muck heap put on any sort of prolonged show whilst of the Snow Buntings seen the small flock at North Light and the individual on the cliffs at Furse were the only non flyby's.







Finches were represented in the main by Brambling, especially as we progressed into October and singles became cliff favouring flocks. The West Cliffs during the howling easterlies mid month were favoured and often flocks of 30-40 could be found in some of the sheltered Geo's. 







At the end of September the isle hosted at lest three lingering Common Rosefinch's and whilst I saw at least one of these birds at several different island crofts it was extremely flighty and never lingered to long where people were present. I managed only a couple of quickly took shots when it landed on the fence at Quoy before it again flew off south.



Twite numbers seemed lower than usual this year, presumably again the winds in wrong direction playing their part, though several 20+ flocks were noted in favoured areas with this bird being at the Bulls Park crop strip.



Siskins and Redpolls also put in appearances but in low numbers and rarely lingered long but those that did and were photographed will feature in a latter post.








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