I’ll post more photos in the next day or two, but here’s a quick snap hot off the camera. Although we only got flight views of the American Bittern at Zennor (albeit good flight views), the Green Heron showed fantastically, down to about 6 feet! Shame the weather wasn’t a bit better – this shot has been tidied up from ISO 1000.
Been meaning to post these for ages, but work and birding keep getting in the way. Here’s a few snaps from Fair Isle to illustrate the place, rather than just the birds!
So, we arrived on Fair Isle on one of these. Seven passengers max…
… and (after enjoying cracking view of the PGTips), we settled in to the new observatory. A surprisingly large building for relatively few people, it’s a fantastically comfortable base. There were generally a flock of Twite outside the front window, and (though you can’t see it here), there’s a small plantation on the north side which is always worthy of checking for that mega passerine!
Looking the other way down the hill from the obs, you can see the harbour. Waders on the beach included Purple and Curlew Sandpipers, while there were usually a few Lapland and Snow Buntings in the vicinity.
This is Easter Lother Water, right up at the north end of the island. Dad probably took this photo while I was crawling around in the heather with the redpolls!
And now to the other end of the island. This view of the south illustrates just how open and un-vegetated the Isle is; basically birding for passerines is focussed on dry stone walls (dykes), along shallow ditches, in steep gullies in the cliffs (geos) and in the small number of gardens. Having said that, though – goodies can turn up anywhere!
Another view of South Light – a really peaceful and beautiful spot. Seals and Eiders were bobbing about in the shallows.
I loved the place – will definitely go back!
Such was the conversation with a curious non-birder at Lowestoft on Sunday. Here’s why… nice find btw, Jono!
Dad and I spent our last full day on the beautiful Out Skerries islands, and were well rewarded with some excellent birds, most of which posed for photos.
First up, this (surprisingly dark mantled) Citrine Wagtail was new for Dad and Paul:
… and shortly afterwards, the Black-headed Bunting was new for me as well. It showed exceptionally well, down to a few feet at times.
Then there was a Red-breasted Flycatcher, feeding around tussocky grass. Although these are often pretty tame, this individual was particularly approachable since it appeared to have a damaged right wing. It was still feeding well, but since it didn’t appear able to get more than a foot off the ground, I guess the future wasn’t looking too bright.
And then this gave us all some exercise, and lessons in Locustella ID.
Quite simply, these were EVERYWHERE on the southern half of Fair Isle! Again, I didn’t ever spend more than a few minutes photographing these, preferring to search for ‘new’ birds, but inevitably some nice opportunities presented themselves. Here’s the best shots.
This Buff-breasted Sandpiper showed well every time we walked past its favoured field at Barkland, though I never really spent enough time with it to get the shots I wanted. This one was taken just before dusk, in late afternoon sunshine, while the bird was rather dozy and even more approachable than normal!
Next up, an interesting wagtail. Clearly this is a ‘flava’ wag of some description, but it was really strikingly grey and white, the only yellow on the bird under the vent – my instant reaction was Grey Wag before it landed, and I’ve certainly not seen an autumn bird like this before. I think consensus in the obs was that it was probably a Grey-headed, race thunbergi, but I’d be interested in any comments either way.
Now, a rather dodgy photo… but a cracking little charismatic bird! This Subalpine Warbler necessitated a brisk walk down to Lower Leogh on our final afternoon, but was well worth while. Given the other birds turning up on the Northern Isles at the time, I’d speculate that this is probably an Eastern race bird, but I guess I’ll never know for sure.
Finally, a commoner migrant, but one of my favourites. For some reason, I wasn’t really expecting to see many Whinchat this far north by late September, but there was certainly no shortage for the first week of our trip – we regularly saw three or four a day.
Twite were taken on Fair Isle, while the Rosefinch is one of two seen at Quendale on our first afternoon on Shetland, just after we’d seen the River Warbler. It was typical of Shetland birding:
Well, OK, it’s not always quite that easy… but you get the idea.
Back to (very) northern birds again… We saw three Hornemann’s Arctic Redpolls on Shetland, the first two twitched on Unst (see photos on the wires), while the third was found by Tim Cleeves as he stood about two yards to my right on Fair Isle. D’oh! Still, it was a cracking bird, and posed pretty well for pics.
And here’s an interesting ‘north-western’ type Redpoll, photographed alongside the Arctic on Fair Isle. It appeared very cold toned and grey in the field, with heavy streaking on the flanks against a clean white ground colour. Size was pretty similar to the Hornemann’s – ie large!
If anyone has any comment on which subspecies this bird might be (presumably islandica or rostrata), and why, please drop me a line.
And here’s another brief interruption in the flow of photos from Shetland – my second Isabelline Wheatear in Suffolk, this time in glorious sunshine. Good to see a few familiar faces and have a bit of a chat, as well.
…I have seen an Olive-backed Pipit in the UK! This may not seem a particularly impressive or noteworthy achievement, but believe me, after the number of hours I’ve wasted on this species in the last 15 years, it’s made my weekend. Prior to yesterday, I think I’d probably dipped at least seven OBPs, from Scilly to Suffolk, and to make it worse all were present again the following day. I really don’t know how I managed such a ridiculous run of form, but there you are – everyone has a bogey bird, I guess, and I need another one now. Brown Flycatcher, perhaps…
Anyway, here’s what all the fuss is about:
And here’s the scene of the twitch – a long slippery walk over the saltmarsh to reach an approx 100m long line of gorse:
Another cracking bird from Fair Isle – it took us three visits to North Light to see it, and a fourth in better weather to get half-decent pics, but it was well worth it. By contrast, the bird at Esha Ness showed first time, but the weather was pretty absymal!
It was surprisingly distinctive amongst Meadow and Rock Pipits – very plain, almost unstreaked, mantle; face pattern dominated by a strong eyering; dark legs; and (obviously) a buff belly! The call was also clearly different – an almost bunting like soft ‘sip’.
Let’s start with my highlight of the trip – PGTips to its friends!
We arrived on Fair Isle a day late, after spending eight hours kicking our heels in Tingwall airport the day before. Regular updates of a Pallas’s Grasshopped Warbler showing well didn’t help our mood! So, when we finally touched down, there was no doubt about where to get dropped off – straight to Upper Leogh, please…
The warbler had been showing on and off in a small vegetable garden, and along the adjacent stone walls and ditches, including just ten minutes before we got there. However, it took 45 minutes of patient (and nerve-wracking) searching before it re-appeared. Initially, we only got the briefest of views as it pinged from place to place… until it ended up in a tiny walled enclosure, and showed superbly. Here’s the results.
This appears to be a rather worn individual, with the white tail tips entirely worn off, and those on the tertials heading the same way. Even so, the warm toned rump, yellow throat and creamy supercilium contrasting with a darker cap made the ID relatively obvious – and what a great way to see this much-wanted Fair Isle speciality!
Keep checking the blog over the next few days – there’s about 10GB of images downloading at the moment.
For the moment, here’s a very elusive, boring little bird from Shetland, showing poorly at great distance in terrible weather. Not.
