It has been a funny old week. From a birding point of view it was relatively quiet, with only 155 new birds caught. That being said we did catch plenty of Red-backed Shrike - 13 in one day! Plenty of bleeding fingers for both of us.
Highlight of the week was our friends Steve and Netty from back home coming to see us. They arrived on Tuesday and left on Sunday, having a great time while they were here. They helped us with going round the nets to get birds and we managed to show them several species they had never seen before including: Red-backed Shrike, Lesser Whitethroat, Barred Warbler, Thrush Nightingale and Pied Flycatcher. Perfect timing meant that they saw the first few White-tailed Eagles of the autumn start to pass the Island, four on one day, with Steve flushing one from low trees on the road when he was out jogging; it looked huge as it flew along the road, almost spanning the track, a truly memorable Landsort experience!!
Apart from seeing birds in the hand and some walks, Tore came up trumps and took the four of us up the lighthouse and then out on the pilot boat to drop one pilot at one boat and pick another up from a second. I don't think Steve stopped grinning for the whole trip! He and Chris also went fishing off the rocks, more in hope than expectation, but surprisingly we caught four Cod and a Herring (well Chris caught three Cod and a Herring and Steve caught a Cod!!). The Cod made great fishcakes. Picking wild Raspberries and Goosberries all helped to give a real Swedish feel to their trip. Although we would never admit this publically, we were delighted to have them stay and miss them
After they left Tore offered Kay and I another pilot trip, but this one was even more special - out to the Royal Princess, fourth largest cruise liner in the world and over 70m above sea level to the top. Once again Tore makes coming alongside such a massive vessel look effortless!
Sunday saw the arrival of a party of young children for a guided trip. A real pleasure to show them all that is done here on Landsort and to let them see some of the birds up close. Less easy to deal with are a couple of elderly ladies who are out here as 'volunteers' but in truth are a bit of a waste of space. Can't identify Blackbirds, common warblers etc, do not know how to extract birds and are slow and unsteady over the rocks. The language barrier does not help either. They are here until Saturday and for the first time ever since we arrived I am hoping the weather stops us catching birds - that's not right!!!
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