SHETLAND BIRD NEWS & MORE!

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Little Stint at Pool of Virkie. 

 

Pallid Harrier 1s. male by cliffs at Westing, Quail in field south of Keen of Hamar, Unst. 

https://www.nature-shetland.co.uk/latest-sightings.

https://www.fairislebirdobs.co.uk/latest_sightings.html 

 

A fresh day here and quite windy. I don't love seeing the sycamore leaves being blown off the trees until Autumn, but there are quite a few scattered over my daisy filled grass in the driveway. Another jobs day, including filling up the bird feeders, cleaning the ponds out and feeding and watering my new shrubs and bedding plants. Usual Starlings and families of House Sparrows stripping the feeders. Put some large stones around each of my three shrubs in the front lawn, so they don't get beheaded when I use my new strimmer for the first time!

 

Since hearing that my builder is not going to have time to put my bookcases up any time soon, I have had to force myself to have another go again this afternoon. It didn't start well and I didn't expect it to – split the wood in two places when trying to attach the decorative front strips to the side panels, but hopefully it won't show when all four are up and in place. Attaching these was seriously tricky and involved tapping in small black plastic rectangular pieces into the grove all the way along the main edge of the large side panel and then with a rubber mallet (over old drinks mat) tapping the decorative strip down onto the black pieces until the entire thing was joined to the side panel. One of the strips is about 3mm shorter than the side panel, this could get interesting when I attach all the other pieces, not!

 

I've realised that although I'm very happy with the size, height and white washed colour, they are very cheaply made and the wood is thin – I'm going to have to be super careful putting these together. Looking at the tiny white plastic support pegs that the shelves will be sitting on, I can't see them taking the weight of heavy books – time will tell! These bookcases are not in the same league as the Ebern bookcases I bought from Wayfair for my office/studio – you could fill those shelves with bricks and they wouldn't budge (they are not available any more as wanted these for the living and dining room)! If these bookcases don't take the weight of my books I will just have to add some central supports at a later date, so not the end of the world.

 

    Where is the Blue-cheeked Bee eater?!