Yesterday, Shetland was bathed in sunshine. I (like many Shetland folk) spent the morning gardening... and the afternoon... and the evening. It's amazing what you can do when the weather is right (and it makes a difference having the sound of meadow pipits and skylarks in the background). Newton popped up to Sumburgh Head in the afternoon and as well as enjoying the thousands of guillemots and dozens of razorbills, he was chuffed to see a couple of puffins just over the wall. An hour later, there were a few dozen. Come tea-time, there were hundreds of them! The puffins are back - woohoo!
In the evening, I completed my marathon gardening session and visited the reserve too. It's always brilliant to see puffins for the first time in a year. I get all gleeful like a child, watching them billing, flying, sleeping, not-too-gracefully landing, and so on. We watched one individual who seemed to be having a spring clean, carrying a chunky pebble around. There were around three hundred on the eastern banks, and hundreds more elsewhere. After a while, my excitement turned into a peaceful appreciation. To watch puffins, fulmars, razorbills and guillemots as the sun sets on Sumburgh Head is my idea of paradise.
Here's wishing for a successful breeding season for all of Shetland's seabirds.
There are other birds returning to our islands - wheatears, bonxies (great skuas), swallows but it is the humble meadow pipit that has caught my attention. I think it is partly their song, a joy upon the ear after a long winter, but quite simply they are just gorgeous. One bird that you may not be seeing at the moment is the female blackbird. I hadn't registered it until a friend Dave mentioned it. What with it being spring, they're all on their eggs.
Cheerio for noo.