Copies of the STRONSAY BIRD REPORT - printed early January 2012
2012 Starts with a bang............
....this heron in Whitehall Village shows all the main features of a 1st winter Great Blue Heron - very similar to our bird of mid-October 1999. Interestingly there has been a similarly-plumaged heron in Kirkwall for some time. The Mainland bird is also considered to be a Great Blue Heron by several observers.
With over 60 records of American Bittern in the UK we must surely have had far more of the much more numerous Great Blue Herons - they have just gone undetected here! It would seem that many UK observers expect Great Blue Heron to be much bigger and more rufous than our Grey Herons but in fact the northern populations of Great Blue are almost the same size and show far less rufous - some juveniles and even adults virtually none at all - than their counterparts in the south. All three Orkney birds fit neatly into this much mis-understood but typical plumage-pattern of 'northern' juvenile/1st winter Great Blue Heron. An excellent example of a similarly-plumaged bird appeared on the Bill Oddie programme filmed in Florida and screened on terrestrial TV in the UK in late 1999/early 2000.
Rufous in neck flanks and epaulettes
Distinct rufous wash to 'thigh', dark neck sides and mantle
Black (shiny) tarsus and rufous on wing-coverts,flanks, neck, and epaulettes.
The typical 'gold-watch' mark above the bend of the wing is a distinct feature of Great Blue Heron.
Note also the rufous epaulettes and rufous at the bend of the wing.
.......and on 22nd February.......
...a Grey Heron.....and:
.......the 'other' heron!
(Both photographed at approx. 4.15pm).
Also seen on the island in early 2012.............
This Woodcock spent the whole day feeding outside the Castle kitchen window on 2nd February
Whilst around the island several Iceland Gulls were to be found feeding in the fields of short grass.......
........and late last Autumn:
This Pallid Harrier feeding on a rabbit carcass in the road close to The Reserve at 2.30pm on 28th October - the first female ever recorded in the UK. The rabbit - run over by a car - had been present since first light and had certainly not been killed by the harrier. This may be a useful id guide to the species as we have never seen a hen Harrier eating carrion, and given the hundreds of rabbits run over on the island's roads every year if Hen Harriers did eat carrion we would certainly have recorded it by now! They must have made hundreds of 'fly-pasts' during our 25 years here. Note the big bill of this bird - another good pointer for the species.
........and again taken through the car windscreen.........
....this Pied Wheatear was infuriatingly only present for a few minutes.
Far more obliging was this Pallas's Warbler present in a garden for awhole week...
.....and most obliging of all was this Hawfinch outside the kitchen window at Castle:
