Doctor, I have this feeling I'm being watched

Not much to report in the way of birds today – there were 'rares' all over the place, but not in south Mainland. Possibly something to do with the fact that the wind was mainly northerly, or more likely the fact that we spend too much time drinking tea and pissing about with webcams etc.

Actually we did try fairly hard today, but for very little reward. The day got off to a promising start, with a brief Yellow-browed Warbler in Rob's garden. Only the second Sunnydell garden record and I've found both of them. And both times Rob hasn't been here! Encouraged by this and news of good birds elsewhere I went off to tramp through the Ditch of Delights or whatever it's called (the one where Marcus found the Paddyfield and Thrush Nightingale last year), only for Rob to see an even briefer Bluethroat in the same place the warbler had disappeared into. Needless to say there weren't any birds in the ditch. In fact I've yet to see a bird of any species in that fucking ditch. Ditch of Bollocks would be a better name.

After this we covered the Virkie/Exnaboe/Toab area thoroughly, but saw very little. After getting some essential supplies at the shop, Rob had the 'leftfield' idea of driving up to the top of Fitful Head. You're not really supposed to go up there, but we did, past the 'no unauthorised vehicles' sign and up an incredibly steep slope to the top. The view from here is amazing, but there was very little in the way of birds apart from 4 Snow Buntings which flatly refused to be photographed. I did, however, have a moth tick on Fitful Head – a Haworth's Minor, which was nice.

An unusual view – looking down on Sumburgh Head

Looking north from Fitful Head

And that was about it, apart from the strange experience of being watched eating my tea (a very nice chicken biryani cooked by Mark) on Mark's 'crop cam' (see yesterday's post) which had inadvertently been left on, and was broadcasting a reflection in the window of Rob's living room! When we found out this was happening, we briefly considered turning the camera round to face the room in a sort of 'Birders Big Brother'. However, we quickly decided that this would be immensely tedious for everyone, watching three blokes sitting around drinking whisky and typing on laptops. And there's no sound on the webcam. In fact it would be worse if there was sound, as it would probably lead to a lot of libel actions.

Weather forecast for tomorrow is monster again, but this time the winds are from the south-east, so something might actually make landfall here rather than further north.

02:20 update: another moth tick - 2 Brindled Ochres in Rob's moth trap. Yes, I'm still up, and the bottle of Jura is empty.