Shetland Day 2: A Real Wild One

The forecast for Sunday 3rd October was foul. Like, proper wash-out, don't-bother-getting-out-of-bed foul. But we had waited a long time for this Shetland trip, and we weren't going to let a bit of rain stop us getting out. Or wind. Maybe hail and snow, but the forecast wasn't that bad. Bacon, on the other hand, could well delay the start of the birding day...

The result of 80mph gusts forecast on Shetland on 3rd October

News of the Semi-palmated Sandpiper (on which we dipped the previous evening) being relocated near Pool of Virkie broke pretty early and gave us the shot in the arm we needed to get moving. The wind was howling but reasonable scope views could still be obtained in the prone sniper position, even if anything but the most basic record shots were a challenge. It was hanging out with a flock of Dunlin and a bright Little Stint which provided a convenient comparison.

Poor shot of the Semi-palmated Sandpiper (right) with Dunlin, Pool of Virkie

An equally poor shot of Little Stint just for comparison

From there we trundled past the tumescent windsock on the Sumburgh airstrip around to Grutness, a spot I have always enjoyed visiting since a close encounter with an American Buff-bellied Pipit a few years ago. More lying down was required here to photograph a rather windswept Wheatear on the tarmac. Jono went for a stroll in a wet area nearby, if leaning into the wind at a 45 degree angle can be classed as a stroll, and put up a Jack Snipe. I joined him in trying to relocate it and we seemed to disturb a couple of chunky passerines which flew overhead calling. 

Windswept Wheatear at Grutness

Wheatear

Speculation over the crackling radios suggested possibly one of the scarcer Buntings, but within a few minutes, hidden from my view, they sat up on the rock armour in front of the rest of the team revealing themselves to be Shorelarks. A few pics were obtained by the others but they flew before I could point my lens at them. Although a small flock of this photogenic species showed well later in the week at Scatness, the ruthless tick-machine which is Bradders Birding Tours almost never goes back for seconds - hence stealing Howard's photo for this post! 

Shorelarks at Grutness (pic by Howard Vaughan)

Buffeted by the weather we headed back to Hoswick for a brew, then Sandwick where a couple of Purple Sandpipers were trying to be invisible on the shoreline, then Wester Quarff where we hoped that both we and a fistful of rarities might find shelter. The search for them was curtailed when news broke of a Bonelli's Warbler species a short way away, back on the main road, and we re-traced our steps to connect with it after a mercifully brief wait. Had it been an Eastern Bonelli's, it would have been a tick for two of us - but after a day of silent teasing it eventually called to reveal itself as Western - still a good bird, but no cigar.

Otter at Grutness

Purple Sandpiper at Sandwick

The twitch at the Bonelli's was the biggest we had seen all week, and freaked out by the crowd and the awful prospect of having to *socialise* we made our excuses and left to check out a few other sites, the best of which was Fladdibister, where Howard kicked up a Little Bunting which the rest of us missed. 

Western Bonelli's Warbler

Surely showing it facing the other way makes it an Eastern Bonelli's Warbler?

The hour was getting late, and the promise of Sunday roast - yours truly's main contribution to the culinary week - was calling. Fighting 50mph winds all day was by now taking its toll and when Bradders proposed one last stop at Orcaquoy in the near darkness for a Red-breasted Flycatcher, I confess to whining like a 6 year old who just wanted to get home before C-Beebies finished for the day. But I was persuaded to head once more unto the breach and, Bradders being Bradders, only went and booted up an Olive-backed Pipit on to a garden wall!

Loving those cotton white underparts

With our driver having scored another good find we were finally allowed home for some dinner and a well-deserved ale. Given that the day had been a potential write-off, the team had done pretty well. At a personal level there was some trauma, however, in discovering that what appeared to be an intermittent fault with my lens discovered whilst papping the pipit had now become permanent. Photographically, the trip was potentially over before it had barely begun and I sulked and burnt dinner until the offer of a loan of a spare by top bird photographer Gary Thoburn saved the day. We arranged to meet up the following morning so I could collect it, and I slept the sleep of the just. 

A wall-creeper, not a Wallcreeper: Olive-backed Pipit, Orcaquoy

OBP - another top find for BBT

Dropping in for a chat

I joined the ranks of the unemployed this week for the first time in 27 years. In case you were worried there, don't be, I wasn't fired from my job at the council in disgrace: fortunately, unlike many of my colleagues in cash-strapped local government, I was able to leave at a time of my own choosing, and I shall return to full-time employment as early as next week. But more on that later, the week between jobs provided an opportunity yesterday to get out and about with the camera.

Northern Wheatear at Maiden Castle yesterday

The morning light was better at the Bill earlier in the day, but the Wheatears more distant



A female was with the male on a dung-heap at Maiden Castle

A second, less well marked bird at Portland Bill

It being mid-March, as the first summer migrant birds had been trickling in all week, there was one species in particular on my mind: Wheatear. Rising early I negotiated the road works onto Portland and hit the Bill slopes just as they were being kissed by the rising sun. The immediate reward was two male Wheatears. Seeing these long distance migrants from Africa catching the morning light was a tonic and appeared as proof that spring was winning the battle with winter, despite the forecast for weekend snow. Skylarks singing overhead seemed to prove the point. An obliging male Stonechat on the slopes and a Black Redstart in the Bill quarries completed an attractive trio of chats for the morning.

Female Black Redstart

A presumed migrant in the Bill quarries

Male Stonechat - often obliging around the Pulpit Inn

Skylark at Portland Bill

A brisk southerly saw rough seas crashing around the obelisk at the Bill's southern tip, so much so that the Purple Sandpipers which are often directly below had been pushed up to almost eye level, providing unusually good photo-opportunities. They were rather more successful at dodging the spray than I. I headed up to the more sheltered Church Ope Cove to dry off and look for Wall Lizards - more on them in a later post - and was treated to my first photographable butterfly of the year: a Peacock which basked briefly on a warm rock.

Purple Sandpiper

Purple Sandpiper

The Bill was taking a bit of a pounding on Friday

Peacock at Church Ope Cove

On the subject of butterflies, the return to gainful employment mentioned above starts very shortly in the form of probably my dream job at Butterfly Conservation, the UK charity dedicated to saving butterflies and moths, which is based here in Dorset. If you're not a member already, you obviously should be: they do great work for our hard-pressed Lepidoptera. And now there is the extra incentive that by joining you will be keeping me too busy to clutter up the internet with so-so photos :-). Speaking of which, here are a few more chats to end with - and why not!



Winter highlights: the waterbirds

As the early spring migrants start to trickle in, it's time to look back at a few highlights of the winter. First up, some waterbirds and waders from around Dorset over the last few weeks.

Purple Sandpiper, Shell Bay Ferry Terminal

One of two Purple Sandpiper feeding on the ferry slipway at Studland yesterday

An engaging species to watch up close as it dodges the incoming waves

Much earlier in the winter a flock of Goosander spent some time fishing close in to Hamm Beach in Portland Harbour

Nine birds in the flock the day I was there

Red-breasted Merganser, also in Portland Harbour

Male Red-breasted Merganser

Also that day a trio of Pale-bellied Brent Geese were with their Dark-bellied cousins at Ferrybridge

Quite easy to pick out among the Dark-bellied Brents

Closer to home a Black Brant (far right) was at Middlebere with the Dark-bellied Brent flock

Again, easy to pick out when on its own; not so easy in with a flock of several hundred birds

Two of the eleven Barnacle Geese which spent much of the winter at Swineham

This Black-necked Grebe was in Shell Bay earlier in the winter...

...same species, same place, just a few weeks later



Sanderling dwarfed by a wave about to break on Studland beach

Purple Sandpiper

Suffering for your art

The first day of 2017, normally a red letter day in the birding calendar, was a bit of a washout with heavy rain causing me to abort a planned afternoon visit to Swineham. Well it's the 'post-truth' era so much easier to conclude it would be birdless from the comfort of the armchair than to actually go there and prove it. So here are a few pictures from before and after that from two of Dorset's urban birding hotspots - Lyme Regis, which I visited to see my godsons last Friday, and the built up north shore of Poole Harbour, around which I strolled with the family yesterday. The sun shone mightily at both, and photographs were the inevitable result.

Purple Sandpipers often roost on The Cobb at Lyme Regis but they are either distant there or right underneath you making photography difficult - but it was low tide so I caught up with a flock on a rocky shelf at the beach 

The snag was they were feeding on a ledge surrounded by six inches of water and I was only wearing my 'about-town' shoes. So off they came enabling me to wade through the freezing water, lacerating my feet on the barnacled rocks. Well you have to suffer for your art...

Not often you get to see the beautiful purple iridescence on a Purple Sandpiper - but it can be seen on this one (click to enlarge)

A careful approach allowed me to get pretty close

A pair of Dipper were in the Mill stream which runs through the heart of town

A curtsying courtship display with a flash of the white eyelid

One of very few locations in Dorset where Dipper can be seen

Grey Wagtail also frequent the same stream

A misty Golden Cap from Lyme Regis beach

Mediterranean Gulls were also on the beach at Lyme Regis

No longer a rare sight on the Dorset coast

Ethereal sunset looking west from Chideock - we could see the reflection but not the sun itself

Black-tailed Godwits were present in large numbers at Upton Country Park yesterday - the first sunny day of 2017

Also a large Dunlin flock out in Holes Bay

Mixed flock of Dunlin and Blackwits against the backdrop of urban Poole

A good selection of wintering duck were in the bay including this smart drake Pintail

Blue Tit in the woodland at Upton CP

Finally from Upton a backlit male Stonechat

Earlier in the day saw me on the groynes at Sandbanks where a patient approach allowed me to get close to another favourite wader: Sanderling

Sanderling at Sandbanks

The roosting birds tolerated my careful approach and a less careful approach from a couple of dogs, but ultimately a jetski put them to flight - unfortunately an occupational hazard for the Sandbanks Sanderlings