End of transmission !

The title is not a pretense to the end of the blog but to the events of yesterday ? The news of a Sandhill Crane on Orkney (eluded to in Tuesdays post) meant leaving the birding abyss that is Shetland (only at the moment) yesterday morning to make the 25 minute flight to Kirkwall in the company of Messrs Preston, Minton & Dunn. On arrival at the airport we met up with Paul Higson, and after the handshakes and 'well done's' we were led to our complimentary wheels for the day. A short drive down to South Ronaldsay and we were met by Tim Wootton and after the pleasantries spent the majority of the day at various sites watching the 'always quite distant' Sandhill Crane.

The assembled crowd enduring an 'Orkney standoff'

Some of the crowd make a bid for freedom

This way lads ! Look, its over there ? Throughout the day we visited the Adult American Golden Plover at Deerness, had a good breakfast in Kirkwall and had an eventful time with our 'wheels' ?

Earlier that morning we all stood in front of our complimentary wheels wondering what the slick was covering 'half the car park'. Paul didn't know and didn't look too worried either so we headed off. All was fine with the car, it happily accepted £30 of petrol and travelled between South Ron, Deerness & Kirkwall that was until it thought 'enough was enough' and that's were the problems started ? First the stubborn gearbox then the heavy clutch, over the next hour we stalled and crunched our way back to South Ron and that was were our 'wheels' died. The unfortunate slick over the car park was transmission fluid which eventually led to the gearbox seizing up and the poor car being left abandoned, fortunately Jon Dunn in his hire car was on hand to ferry us around for the remainder of the day. A very enjoyable day in good company and good to see friends from south up to. Massive thanks to Paul for all his help and his car, sorry ! Also cheers to Steve for putting us up on Tuesday and good to see top artist Tim Wootton again, look forward to the images. Check Tim out here : http://www.tim-wootton.com/