It’s been excellent, a very good spring migration period throughout Shetland.
Not quite over yet, still a chance until the end of the month.
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Excellent. Enjoy 
That Crossbill looks amazing.
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4 Redpoll (which looked more like Mealy/Greenland race than the Lessers I’ve been seeing lately) joined the Crossbill in the pines.
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Have what I think is a pair of house sparrows nesting under the porch tiles but one of them keeps sitting on the window ledge or hovering in front of the window.
Assume it is a reflection thing as it tends to do it when sunny out
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Now it’s coming every 5-10 mins and either just gently tapping on the window or hovering and tapping like crazy
Best I can do with an iPhone on max zoom
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We currently have all the curtains closed on two floors to placate an exceptionally mardy carrion-crow that’s been doing the same thing - attacking its own reflection in the belief that it’s a rival bird.
Being a crow it has managed to do quite a bit of damage to the paintwork of our brand new fucking windows, too - so it’s fortunate indeed that I don’t (yet) own a shotgun…
We also had long-tailed tits and a pheasant doing likewise earlier in the year. Hawk-shaped window stickers did exactly fuck-all - only the passing of the breeding season / drop in birdbrain testosterone levels seems to help…
Patterns on the Crossbill are amazing !!
Not much in the way of new migrants today and all of those from yesterday have moved on, so spent a little time photographing Curlews.
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I have to say I’m thoroughly enjoying once again the many and varied visitors this year Paul - some really superb photography as well - cheers.
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That is a fucking beautiful pic Paul 
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Cheers, I just love Curlews and Whimbrels, so similar yet so different.
In my top 3 dream “finds” is Little Whimbrel - about as likely as winning the lottery on the same day that they find Shergar.
You have to set yourself targets though 
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One more of the extremely vocal Curlew
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Stunning work as ever Paul - I regularly show stuff you’ve taken to a whole raft of friends and family
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Fantastic!
Is the green tinge to the underside of the wings the ground being reflected, or is that their natural colouring?
Probably more to do with reflected light
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Out of nothing more than idle curiosity and to see how reliable it is, I decided to test out the Merlin Bird app over the last couple of weeks, seeing as it has a few fanbois here and there.
Showing it photographs I’ve taken (via my computer screen) it did pretty well. It did fall short on a few, Nightjar for example was identified as Common Nighthawk which given that it knew my location was very surprising (C Nighthawk is a mega rarity in the UK) Common species were pretty much OK and it even correctly identified Hume’s Warbler which I thought it might struggle with. That said, a Black-winged Pratincole was ID’d as a Collared P and every Redpoll pic (of 3 different races) was wrongly identified as Hoary (American term for Arctic Redpoll) So a few mistakes with tricky birds but not a terrible performance.
Using it in the field via the sound setting it was a bit of a mixed bag. Again it was quite good with common species but struggled with scarcer birds. It identified a Blyth’s Reed Warbler as a Marsh Warbler and failed to offer any solutions for Savi’s Warbler or Water Rail. It was quite good at picking out background calls and song when several birds were vocalising at the same time.
I concluded that it’s a useful tool for what I guess is its target audience but needs a lot of refinement (which I expect is an ongoing process) to be of any real benefit if you’re asking it to ID scarce/rare birds.
Anyway it was an itch scratched and a bit of fun but I won’t be using it for the foreseeable future.
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I do too
I use the app almost every day, just to put a smile on my face. Love it.
I know screenshots from a video off a cameraphone aren’t totally legit, but I haven’t bought a proper lens yet, and I was out jogging with the dog so it’s all I
Thought I’d got a cracking vid of the Barn Owl, including it’s silhouette against the sunset as it flew again, then realise I hadn’t pressed record…
Got another chance later on in the run, jumped in a shallow ditch out of view and just as it came into view it dived on something! Of course I filmed for 2 minutes more and just as I ended the video to start another it flew off.
Anyway, I was tremendously excited!
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