Two days, two ticks...

Details for Friday...

Still howling northerlies up here, and basically no birds... But fortunately one of them was a good one! As we were heading down towards the south of the island, a quick scan across the fields revealed Tim Cleeves waving frantically to us. Cue quick march across the fields... "The pipit's back!"

Happily, the obs van was passing a few minutes later and we managed to cadge a lift up to North Light. As we arrived, another birder was pointing ahead of us - surely this would be the bird? Nope, it had just disappeared 10 seconds before, and there was no sign in the next two hours before we had to return for lunch, either.

So, an hour later, back we go, into the teeth of the gale. Third time lucky, and it showed quite well, though never close. It was pretty distinctive: almost completely plain on the mantle, dark legs, prominent pale eye ring and a bit of a supercilium, and obviously buffy tones to the breast and flanks.

Apart from that, we've seen little else: loads of twite, meadow pipit, and Bonxies as usual, and migrants represented by two snow bunting, single wheatear, swallow and redwing.