Rainbow Stormbird

Starling is a good name, but I prefer the title Rainbow Stormbird. I think it suits them better.

They’re busy collecting food from the dying seaweed tossed up by the latest tide. They’re noisy, competitive and frenetically busy.

They’re also a beautiful glossy rainbow.

For some reason I’m not very impressed by my attempt to get a flying shot of one over the waves at Taftend on Westray.

Maybe it’s because the insects in its beak aren’t as perfectly pinpoint-sharp as I would like them to be. Maybe it’s because it feels slightly ‘off’ seeing one fly over the blue waves. I don’t normally think of them as seabirds.

And then here’s that yellow beak and stars-in-a-black-sky plumage as one sits surveying the vast dinner-plate of the beach.

Lovely.