Oct 31, 2011

It isnt !

After some absolutely fascinating, informative and intense debate across the usual internet forums the consensus of opinion is now that this bird is a Desert wheatear rather than a Red-tailed Wheatear. It’s a shame that it wont be a mega but it is a particularly rare visitor and a splendid record for Orkney. It has made for an excellent weekend birding and has drawn me out of my cant be arsed funk of the last few weeks. I might even go and try for another look to day as most of the film I shot yesterday seems to not have come out on the computer. The bird is at Sandside bay Deerness, park about half way down the track and the bird is hanging about thirty yards back from the shore….good hunting.

3 comments:

  1. Glad to see you're back :) We haven't got a clue as to the ID so we'll wait and see what happens......when they finally decide.

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  2. I think the debate is pretty well over now spiderlover. I thought the Discussions on orkbird and bird forum were just riveting stuff and I learned so much from it…..magic times!!

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  3. Still causing discussion & debate I see, Have to say the 3 hrs we spent taking pics & your cracking vids were most enjoyable, The differing opinions were very interesting & some of the manoeuvres carried out to nail the elusive tail pic were worthy of the SAS, Must say I was very fortunate to have observed the Desert Wheatear or not?

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