Noup Head, Westray

I went over to Westray today. I got the bus up to Pierowall then walked onto the coast at Grobust and headed west past Knowe of Queen of Howe Broch, around Haa' o' Ourness and the Bay of Noup. A few arctic skua and arctic terns there. I watched a skua steal an oystercatcher egg and, minutes later, steal another. Lots of tysties (or black guillemots). I made coffee at Point of Scorraber then carried on to Noup Head. The cliffs were full of guillemots, kittiwakes, fulmars and gannets. Thirty years ago no gannets nested there at all; now there are hundreds. I made my way back to the village and the bus. From it I glimpsed, on a roadside bush, what I thought a red-backed shrike, but I couldn't be sure. More here.