Killdeer in Shetland

1st winter Killdeer.

A 1st winter Killdeer turned up on Shetland in early November and had been tempting me ever since , daily reports and some stunning photo's & video footage by Shetland Wildlife certainly fuelled the desire to go and see it.

Long tailed with buff tip.

So last week i travelled up to Aberdeen with a birding friend of mine on the 7th December and took the over night ferry to Shetland , we picked up the hire car and headed to Sandwick , thankfully we soon found the wart junction and thanks to Hugh Harrop's map we searched the fields to where the Killdeer had been favouring , we had no luck in the first field so i left my mate scanning that field whilst i walked further down the road to the next favoured field and to my absolute delight the 1st winter Killdeer was there !!!!!

Cracking looking bird.

I quickly went back to my mate and told him then we both went back and enjoyed some cracking views of this most wanted lifer.

Feeding on worms.

Lovely buff upper tail coverts.

The above photo shows some of the lovely buff/orange upper tail coverts , when it was having abit of a wing stretch the buff colour on this bird was awesome.

1st winter Killdeer.

We also had some cracking views of Purple Sandpiper near the cafe behind Tesco's at Lerwick.

Purple Sandpiper.

A really successful trip , we took the over night ferry back to Aberdeen  and the next morning the 9th December we headed from the quay to the Loch of Skene .

1000's of Pink Footed Geese.

We arrived at Loch of Skene and the sound of 1000's of Pink Footed Geese greeted us as we got out of the car , one of the best birding experiences i have had , an absolute wonderful sound & sight,  worth the trip up north on it's own.

However the main reason we were here was to try and see the 3 Snow Geese (blue morphs) , the light wasn't great as it was still quite early , however we started the search and it took quite sometime before i picked the 3 Snow Geese out right at the back of the flock, a very welcome year tick for me and a lifer for my mate.