Georgia Platt

A major Redwing movement today @FI_Obs also brought the first significant arrival of Blackbirds of the autumn, with lots of gorgeous dark-billed young male birds amongst them 🖤

One of yesterday's Jack Snipe @FI_Obs was caught and ringed, allowing for some close-up appreciation of their amazing plumage - long pools of iridescent oily green and purple interspersed with golden stripes

This confiding Hoopoe has been a welcome fixture of the last few days @FI_Obs. October is a surprisingly good time to catch up with one of these Mediterranean marvels, with 11 of the isle's 45 records being found in this month

A busy few months at the pottery studio exploring sgraffito, sculpting, and painting. Always sticking to the bird theme of course! Finally found some time to photograph and list my mugs and plates 🐧thepuffinsburrow.etsy.com

Today's Lanceolated Warbler @FI_Obs was a proper little mouse, playing hide and seek in a spool of old fencing wire and scurrying through the long grass, much to finder @LukeMarriner_1's delight. A quintessentially Fair Isle species - brilliant things!

Nightjar flypast @FI_Obs yesterday evening. A record-breaking year of occurrence for this species here, with this being the fourth individual of the year

An unexpected bonus before the ferry home this afternoon, as the Alpine Swift at Loch an Tiumpan stayed long enough for us to catch up with it. Incredible views as it buzzed around our heads!

Some spectacular moths that I don't usually get to see @FI_Obs trapped in the last couple of nights on North Uist - Gold Spot, Pebble Prominent, Garden Tiger and Brimstone

First full day of a short break in the Outer Hebrides today, with great views of the iconic Great Yellow Bumblebee amongst the machair - what an amazing habitat!

Dunlin chicks @FI_Obs today 😍 an irregular breeder on the isle with this being the 8th recorded attempt

@birds_and_me @BritishMoths Indeed it is Andy! They’re so shiny 😍

A successful first use of my homemade moth trap, catching many species that I haven’t seen before. A Hawkmoth sp was the goal - didn’t expect I’d get one so soon! (species names in photo descriptions)

The best kind of tired after 14 hours in the field monitoring seabirds @FI_Obs today - from Puffin food sampling early this morning, through circumnavigating the isle for sea-based Gannet counts, and a long afternoon of Puffin productivity checks and Razorbill GLS deployment

How does this, turn into this ?! Brilliant to be out today finding Bonxie nests then ringing and GLS tagging the adults to look at feeding patterns and which wintering grounds the @FI_Obs birds are using. What great birds, if not a little painful!

Nest-mapping of our Bonxies is underway @FI_Obs, with the some of the class of 2024 newly hatched already. Lots of hope for the future resting on these little fluffballs!

With more wader clutches hatching with each day, we spent this afternoon locating a few more Lapwings to ring. Here, the staggered hatching between clutches is blatantly apparent!

Some edited pics of this afternoon's star Marmora's Warbler, which gave great views as it fed voraciously between bouts of (well-deserved) napping. A first for @FI_Obs, and the 8th British record.

Yesterday’s male Dotterel was today joined by this stunning female on the slopes of Ward Hill 😍 A long-awaited sight for me @FI_Obs, with no records since May 2020, these stunners were absolutely worth the wait!

An incredible day @FI_Obs yesterday was all about the Red-backed Shrikes, with a conservative count of 32(!) scattered across the isle, with birds hunting on every fenceline, singing in the gardens, sheltering on the beaches and geos, and even groups out on the open heather 🤯

A glowing Wood Warbler on the rocks below South Light @FI_Obs this afternoon - they really do shine!