When I first caught wind of the possibility of doing a summer internship in Unst, Shetland, before my final year of university, birding was at the front rather than the back of my mind. My initial reaction to being allocated the last two weeks of June and all of July was bittersweet, though. On the one hand, it would be prime time to see Shetland's amazing cast of breeding birds, but on the other I would miss the bulk of spring and autumn migration (the obvious draw to birding in the Northern Isles). Nevertheless, I headed up excited and hopeful, giving myself a modest goal of seeing 80 species on Unst during the six weeks.