Bird sightings updated after brief visit by UKCEHseabirds Calum Scott 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺 Erin Taylor this week. Snow Bunting and overwintering Whimbrel the highlights isleofmaybirdobs.org/bird-news-2/

A short one night stay at the ⁦Isle of May Bird Obs⁩ (pictured) due to poor weather the next few days, resulted in short-eared Owl, Woodcock, 2 Black Guillemot, 2 Little Auk and a cool flock of 10 Shelduck passing by as they crossed the North Sea taking the island year list to 39

The Obs website has been updated with the first sightings of 2024. Hopefully more to come later in the month.
isleofmaybirdobs.org/bird-news-2/

White-billed Diver off Isle of May today - a great start to the new birding year!

Its been an unbelievable year so far! Still a bit to go! Congratulations to Isle of May Bird Obs who have also broken their year list this year! Its been a remarkable year across the Northern Isle all round!

Booking priority for 2024 for IOMBO Trust members open today. Use downloadable form isleofmayobs.wordpress.com/how-to-visit/
PLEASE renew membership before applying: membermojo.co.uk/iombofst
High demand for autumn already, applications for spring & summer encouraged!

Here it is in the field.

(2/2) in same period as the S.c. halimodendri, at least 3 S.c. Blythi were present (one confirmed DNA) - great teamwork to sort all this on island from the crew in residence at the time incl Alan Lauder Simon Pinder David Steel and non-twitts Ken Shaw, Keith Morton et al...

Good news today from Martin Collinson #BLM who kindly DNA sequenced a few dropped feathers from this Lsr Whitethroat ssp. from Iof May (present from at least 11th October until at least 15th October). Sylvia curruca halimodendri (Central Asian Lesser Whitethroat). 1st island rec (1/2).

Autumn so far isleofmayobs.wordpress.com/bird-news-2/ with David Steel and friends

***RECORD YEAR LIST*** For those who like this sort of thing, we've recorded 181 species so far this year, beating the previous record of 180 set in 2016. The full story on the Isle of May blog as we celebrate a great year: isleofmaynnr.wordpress.com

RECORD BRIOKEN!! Great achievement by all this year (so far) as the year list record has been broken today.

Celebrating in the Isle of May Bird Obs as the bird obs team found the islands first ever Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler, a very rare bird from Siberian. It’s been a good day!

Epic days birding on the Isle of May! Red-flanked Bluetail, Blyth’s Reed Warbler, 3 Little Buntings, Bluethroat, 3 eastern Lesser Whitethroats, Barred Warbler, Siberian Chiffchaff amongst many common migrants!!

If you get the chance to visit - GO!!!! Zugunruhe is real.

You can support and stay Isle of May Bird Obs - visit the website to keep up to date with news and get more info!

The crew 💙

As always, the people make the week, and we were lucky to spend it with some of the best.

A week on the mighty Isle of May staying in Scotlands oldest bird observatory. Incredible migration in an historic place and our own history made with the islands first Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler amongst an incredible and varied fall of migrants. Migration is unbeatable!! 🌊💥

A fabulous night of the northern lights on the Isle of May last night with more stunning images on the blog: isleofmaynnr.wordpress.com