1st November 2021 : Papa Westray
Varied Thrush
News broke of this fantastic looking Thrush on Wednesday 27th October and i contacted my long distance twitching pal RR to see if it was do-able ??
His reply was it's a logistical nightmare !!, so we both decided to accept we were not able to go, however after seeing the online photo's and the fact other birders had made the journey inspired us to revisit the possibility of going.
We decided as late as Saturday afternoon to make the effort , so everything was booked and we were on our way the early hours of Sunday morning.
It hopped rather than run.
Well everything fell into place and we had fantastic views of this superb looking bird on Monday 1st November.
Here are a selection of photos of the Varied Thrush :
Varied Thrush.
We were also lucky enough to see the 1st winter Grey Phalarope near Knap of Howar .
1st winter Grey Phalarope.
We only had an half hour window Tuesday morning before our flight back to Kirkwall and joined Papa Ranger (Great to meet you) to look for the Varied Thrush but sadly alas we couldn't relocate it again.
A 15min flight got us back to Kirkwall and then off to catch the ferry ,we did have time before our ferry back to Gills Bay to check the harbour area out and had superb views of a Black Guillemot close in.
Black Guillemot.
Many thanks to Jennifer & crew for a very pleasant stay and big congrats to David Roche for his remarkable find, and many thanks to RR for his help in making this great trip possible.
Varied Thrush.
