Wildlife

James Lowen

And what an afternoon's birding we had! The conditions felt truly ‘rare’: a period of south-easterlies, with low cloud – but mild enough to entice out insects and insect-eaters. I can’t recall a pm quite like it: every garden held a Chiffchaff and most nooks harboured a scarce migrant.

Rather than mope around the airport, waiting for news, we hired a van from the very helpful STAR and set off birding – Ade negotiating with Fair Isle Bird Observatory and Direct Flight along the way.

Our ultimate destination was Fair Isle (which, of course, merits its own blogpost), and our schedule had us arriving on the hallowed island the day that the Scottish Referendum results were announced. Unfortunately, upon arrival at Sumburgh airport, low cloud suggested that the chances of the Direct Flight mini-plane departing Tingwall for Fair Isle were low.

Although fundamentally the same ruffians as those halcyon days, members of our group have morphed into BirdLife International conservationists, environmental consultants, a leading academic, a tour leader and an artist. Two were so determined to join festivities that they travelled from Bangkok and Melbourne. And given that most of us had become parents in the past few years, we were on an unprecedented break from paternal duties. Little wonder that expectations were high.

The next day dawned clear, raising hopes of the first flights to Fair Isle for five days. But this left us a couple of hours before any of us needed to be at Tingwall. One car headed towards Spiggie, where they failed to see Pallid Harrier, but found up to three ("probably three, but perhaps just two, and certainly one") Red-breasted Flycatchers and a Yellow-browed Warbler at Veensgarth. Our van tried a few other sites, and struck lucky at Hoswick, where Joe and Stitch found first a Yellow-browed Warbler, then an Arctic Warbler in the YHA garden. The first BB self-found of the trip; result!

Tempting as it was to continue rarity-finding on mainland Shetland, it was time to fly to Fair Isle. By 1130, the whole group was reunited on this remote and rocky Scottish outpost…

Still things didn't quieten down. Dave fulfilled his trip ambition of finding a shrike in Britain, with a lovely Red-backed Shrike hunting along a fenceline. The final scarce find of the day was a Yellow-browed Warbler at the Helstingott playground. And thus we retired – via decent nosh and a lot of beer at the Spiggie Hotel – to our hastily booked, whisky-soaked, bedding-free bothy near Scatness.

The pace didn’t let up. Even the smallest tree held Chiffchaffs; Wheatears were everywhere – even pretending to be Robins on garden spades. Walking up towards Hestingott, we found another Barred Warbler (this one even calling: a deep, scolding rattle).

Call me a wuss, but I was already finding this overwhelming for what we had envisaged as a mere travel day. So much so, as we got out of the van at Toab, I professed that I simply couldn’t take any more rares. Five seconds later, I lifted my bins – and found a Scarlet Rosefinch sitting in the nearest garden! Five minutes later, while looking for the rosefinch, I found a Barred Warbler. Seemingly, there were scarce everywhere!

As we were papping the bluetail, Stitch and Stu picked up two Little Buntings on a wall, which quickly flew over my head, ticking. Our first team find! Eager to learn whether these were the same birds that Dave, Roger and Durwyn had seen at Sumburgh Hotel the previous day, we beetled down there… and found the pair of Little Buntings still present, along with shed loads of finches, chiffchaffs and pipits, plus a couple of Yellow-browed Warblers. So – four Little Buntings within a mile or so! Remarkable.

We started at Sumburgh Head, where we quickly located the Red-flanked Bluetail found earlier that day. Remarkably for a species that only became ‘unblocked’ in 1993 (and for me, a year later), I have now seen six of these cripplers in Britain. How I yearn to find one!

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19-20 Sep 2014 Shetland: red-letter day

Other than a single day pottering around mainland Shetland while working as a wildlife guide on the sadly now defunct Polar Star cruise ship, I had never birded the Northern Isles until now. And what better way to break the duck than a reunion of birding mates from 20 years ago, all in some way connected to the illustrious Cambridge Student Birders of the early 1990s.