MEGA! TENGMALM'S OWL At Ollaberry!

TENGMALM'S OWL

Ollaberry, Shetland

 

Male Chaffinch and Robin in the garden this morning. I was doing some jobs around the house and heard a text, which I guessed was from Lucy and then another message bleeped. It was another half an hour before I got round to checking the phone and wished I had looked at the time, when I saw that there was a TENGMALM'S OWL to go and see at Ollaberry – on the WhatsApp Rare Bird News at 14.51!! OMG!

It was discovered yesterday in a garden by Ewen & Kit Mowat. Hugh Harrop and Logan Johnson decided to try and relocate it and after a bit of searching they found it today! The owners kindly agreed for the news to be released on condition that birders only park at the pier and walk back to the road to view and not to approach the garden, so that the owl is not disturbed. See Hugh's fabulous picture HERE.

Ollaberry is a good 50 minutes drive from mine, but at least it was on the mainland. Hugh kindly waited for me to arrive so he could show me the Tengmalm's Owl through his scope, as it would have been very difficult to find if no one else had been here.

I was quite emotional when I first set eyes on this fabulous bird as I remembered reading about the Tresta bird when I lived in Norfolk and how fabulous it would be to see one of these. The Tengmalm's Owl was perched on a branch, just above a stone wall and was mostly obscured by branches and was sitting with its back to us. Only on the odd occassion did it turn sideways and certainly wasn't facing forwards whilst I was there. Ann Elison got some cracking shots of it facing forwards and she obviously had arrived on site before I got there. My efforts are below, no prizes for these shots, but best I could get. It was wickedly cold and I hadn't dressed properly when I left the house. I was the last to leave at 5pm. I sat in my car by the pier for a while to warm up and then left. The weather was dire now with rain and hail. On route home I stopped at Frankies fish n chip shop at Brae, but the queue was too long for me to bother to wait, so grabbed at pizza from the Scalloway shop for my tea. I took 350 shots and most were pure rubbish and these are not much better! 😂

Having a preen

 

As you can see it was difficult to photograph!

 

A VERY LUCKY FRIDAY 13TH!

 

Huge thanks to the owners and all involved with allowing
birders to see this insanely awesome Tengmalm's Owl.

So lovely to watch this with only four other birders:

Hugh Harrop, Anne Ellison, Adrian Kettle and Logan Johnson!

 

Magical Shetland!

 

Eight years ago to the day I saw my first Snowy Owl at Snettisham RSPB. Here is a video I took and link to my blog post HERE.