An extract from North Ronaldsay, Orkney Blog – 16th October 2019. “A fantastic day with birds everywhere, massive flocks of Thrushes moving across the island throughout the day; the huge rolling flocks of Redwings filling every field, coming in of…
Author: Phil Slade
More Thrush
The forecast for Tuesday morning was about as good as it gets just lately – a gentle breeze from the north with a fair amount of cloud that would slowly break. That was enough to motivate us to head for Oakenclough again where Andy and I met up at 0645…
Back Into Action
Saturday 12 0ctober. I gave my ringing pliers a squirt of WD40. What with the trip to Greece and then the bad weather, they’d been deprived of action since 8 September. This morning it was back to Oakenclough hoping to see and to catch some autu…
Skiathos Blue
If the weather was kind to us in Skiathos, it has been very unfriendly since we arrived home. Going from wall-to-wall sunshine and 30 degrees and then back to the usual British rain, wind and 12 degrees is quite a shock to the system. Until I can…
Loukoumi
The long predicted Thomas Cook debacle finally arrived on 23 September and left Sue and I with a puzzle as to how we might get home near to our original date of 2 October. The Lovely Anna drove us to Skiathos airport to catch our promised rescue …
Back soon.
Back soon with news and views of Skiathos. Stay tuned.
Linnets Minus One
As a light sleeper I’m often awake early. A look at the breaking dawn of Sunday revealed clear skies and no wind – a morning to revisit those darned Linnets that are up to their old tricks of playing hard to get. If anything the Linnets are …
Spotted Saturday
If August is predictable as warblers and Swallows journey south to Africa, September is less so. Just this week saw the first returning Pink-footed Geese when a gaggle of around 200 flew over Pilling and then to the salt marsh beyond; the geese s…
Wheat’s It All About?
Monday was the last of our child minding for the summer holidays, so I couldn’t make it up to Oakenclough where the long drive there and back makes for half a day’s commitment. Instead I made a 15 minute drive to Gulf Lane and grabbed an hour or t…
Goldfinch Compensation
A red sky broke over the hills to the east of Oakenclough on Thursday. It was a warning we should have heeded. But after making the effort for a 6 o’clock start and all that entails, Andy and I saw little reason not to carry on. After all, just two d…