Of late i've been something of a vagrant, i've wandered over Manchestor and the UK generally in search of, well, nothing really. But spent a belting three days up in Scotland, the details of which I will regail the discerning reader with in due time, but for now some pure, unadulterated action from my most favourite inshore small island in Sutherland: Handa!
So imagine a really sunnny coupl'a days (hard isn't it? Perhaps try looking out the window for inspiration), then the day you head over to an exposed island it all goes decidedly rainy. Well that's what happened to our Handa trip, we arrived on the island and soon the sky was doing its best to turn Handa into a quagmire and me into a photographer with a broken camera. This Wheatear seemed to sum up my mood rather well...
...but luckily rain is something we Manks are used to, so I carried on regardless with the day. The cliffs were teeming as usual, as a photographer the gauntlet is always thrown down over getting close to birds, but at distance and with so many subjects it makes sense to take a step back and include the whole vista...
...but what Handa is renowned for are the Great Skuas, or Bonxies. The UK holds over 50% of the global population of these birds, and they're invariably found around smaller birds due to their piratical habits. They will force birds to sick up or drop any catch they might make then eat it, so as one can imagine they're not the prettiest of birds to look at...
...but there is beauty in design, they are superbly evil looking cretures...
...more elegant are their cousins, the scarcer Arctic Skuas. If boxies are born thugs I like to think that Arctic Skuas are assassins...
...but as the day brightened we set off with the wardens to inspect nests. This was particularly exciting with the Bonxies who are 'territorial' to say the least, here's my uncle Mark making his blog debut shortly before avoiding a clobbering...
...when you see them this close you can appreciate their aerial mastery...
...But we also got to see the rather adorable chicks. These are very young, no more than a week old, and still possessing an egg-tooth. So this was an incredibly special encounter, just as the sun came out too...
...and as we left the island we saw the final speciality, the Arctic Tern...
So an ace day in all, and some pretty special encounters. This is birding at its best, perhaps over the next month I can show you some more photos from the last 2 months! :)
