Shetland day 4: D-I-V-O-R-C-E

Day 4, like day 3, dawned bright and not very breezy - a rare treat in these parts two days running - so we started with a thrash around our temporary home patch at Hoswick. A nice selection of common migrants were seen, and Jono took one for the team by putting up a Jack Snipe at the price of falling balls-deep into rancid mud. As he returned to the house to clean up, I managed to locate another Jack Snipe bobbing in the sunshine in the incongruous setting of a field full of Aylesbury type white ducks. As we watched it we chatted with Claire and Nick Oliver, who had just arrived on Shetland and were staying nearby, before re-grouping at the house and heading off in the car.

Black Guillemot, Toft

Black Guillemot, Toft

Before we got far reports started to come through of a Lanceolated Warbler on Unst. This was my nightmare scenario: a species notorious for being misidentified on Shetland, on an island two ferry rides away, which the other three in the team had already seen and would thus be less inclined to take a punt on. Any potential tension over this predicament soon dissipated however, when Claire and Nick offered a lift to Unst to anyone wanting to go for the Lancy. 

Spotted Flycatcher, Hoswick

Jack Snipe, Hoswick

I really didn't want to leave the team, but Lancy was high on my 'most wanted' list, and after two previous Shetland trips without success, I felt I had to go for it. So we arranged to meet the Olivers in a lay-by and initiated divorce proceedings. There was no bitterness or acrimony as the paperwork went through, in fact it was all very civilised. But I'm sure I saw a tear in one of the team's eyes as I popped my satchel into the leather back-seats of my adopted folks' Range Rover. Perhaps in hindsight it was just jealousy at the fancier ride I was hitching, but I like to think not.

A poor year for Yellow-browed Warblers on Shetland - and this shocker at Gutcher was the only photo I managed!

And speaking of shocking photos, this one of the Ring-necked Duck on Yell made the other members of the BBT team extremely jealous 

The report of the Lancy sounded pretty definitive, but I had learnt from previous bitter experience that such reports could quickly evaporate as a result of misidentification. Memories resurfaced of one particularly grim scenario in a rain-swept Quendale with birders chasing a 'Lancy' around which turned out to be a very wet Chiffchaff. As we boarded the first ferry from Mainland to Yell, news came through that the bird hadn't been seen since the original report - not great, but not terrible either as this ground-dwelling species could easily go missing for such a time. We were then approached by another birder, Phil, who couldn't get a space on the ferry from Yell to Unst, so joined our make-shift crew in the hope that the Lancy would reappear.

Bluethroat, Quoys

Bluethroat, Quoys

We had a few minutes to spare before catching the Yell-Unst ferry, enough to stop by a loch on the main drag to tick a distant Ring-necked Duck. But just as we were about to board the ferry, the worst case scenario unfolded: news reached us that the 'Lancy' had been reidentified as the much commoner Grasshopper Warbler. 

Bluethroat, Quoys

Bluethroat, Quoys

My eye started to twitch like Herbert Lom in the Pink Panther films at this point, but we quickly concluded that we had passed the point of no return and pressed on to Unst. We didn't even bother to seek out the Gropper site and headed straight for a quarry at Quoys where a Bluethroat had been reported. An hour's kicking around produced nothing and then Phil managed to deduce that the dropped pin we had made for based on the Birdguides app had been dropped in the wrong place, and we were looking in the wrong quarry!

Bluethroat, Quoys

Bluethroat, Quoys

Heading a mile back down the road we quickly found the correct spot and within minutes had located the Bluethroat. This normally shy species first appeared at the back of the quarry hopping around a rusty manger, but then to our surprise and delight it started to head in our direction, and kept coming until it was barely a few metres away. A characterful bird, it completely saved the day with such a performance, and significantly lifted our spirits for the rest of the trip to Unst. 

Little Bunting, Gutcher

Little Bunting, Gutcher

On the way over whilst waiting for the Yell-Unst ferry we had seen a Yellow-browed Warbler in the last garden before the slipway, but were unable to locate a Little Bunting being looked for by Yell resident Adrian Kettle. On the way back Adrian was still staking out the same garden and got us onto the Little Bunting with plenty of time to get the final ferry of the day back from Yell to Mainland. 

In the meantime I had, of course, missed a belter of a day with BBT. Bradders had found a Radde's Warbler at Kergord, and Jono had picked up an adult White-billed Diver at South Nesting, plugging the gap on his trip list as he was absent when we saw one on the Northumberland coast on the way north. The Olivers were keen to catch up with at least one of these before dusk so we headed for the Radde's and managed fleeting views as it skulked in the long grass.

We returned to Hoswick and I was reunited with the rest of the team just before the decree nisi was pronounced. We patched things up over dinner and agreed never to speak of my unfaithfulness again. As for the Lancy, well that goes into the 'good reasons to keep going back to Shetland in Autumn' category for another year... 

 

Around the world

The head of the household was away recently leaving her offspring and I to make our way around the culinary world without the usual level of dietary guidance to constrain our choices. So Monday was Italian night (BBQ chicken pizza), Tuesday the turn of Mexico (Chilli con Carne), Wednesday a 'home' fixture in England (steak pie and three veg), while Thursday saw us indulge a taste of China (sweet and sour chicken). And lest anyone accuse me of undue sloth, I should point out that only one of these was procured in take-away form. When herself, a vegetarian, returned from a five day trip to New York with the Book Club (!) at the end of the week, we had to confess that Veganuary had not been going so well.

Ring-necked Duck, Radipole Lake

All this globe-trotting reminded me of a few visitors from afar which could be found in Dorset during the first few days of 2019. On New Year's Day I headed down to Weymouth with Steve Smith to see if one of them, a Ring-necked Duck from the Americas, was still present. I first saw this bird before Christmas when it was in a drab brown first winter plumage, but by the turn of the year it had smartened up somewhat and was starting to look more like an adult drake should. We located it at the end of the Radipole Lake nature reserve and enjoyed close views in the sunshine.

Bearded Tit, Radipole Lake

The other notable wanderer was a juvenile White-fronted Goose which took up with a flock of Greylags before Christmas and which had been seen periodically around my local patch at Swineham and Bestwall. Apart from Greylags, the other grey geese - White-fronted, Pink-footed and Bean - are all quite hard to catch up with in Dorset. Judging by the colouration of our wintering White-front, it will have come from the general direction of Russia, being of the sub-species albifrons. I had seen this bird distantly in flight with Greylags on a couple of occasions, identifiable by its small size compared to the rest of the flock, and eventually caught up with it on the deck at reasonably close range on nearby Bestwall.

White-fronted Goose, Bestwall

Nice weather for ducks...

...and geese, not to mention swans, on the Isles of Scilly last week. Not bad enough to stop us getting out every day though. The hides at Porth Hellick often provided shelter from frequent showers, and, conveniently, this also seemed to be the waterbird hotspot for the week. The pool attracted:

11 Whooper Swans - an adult and 2 juvs shown here

Whooper Swan is a scarce bird on Scilly...

...though 6 were also on Tresco at the same time.

A small flock of Greenland White-fronted Geese - all young birds judging by the absence of black patches on their bellies.

Initially wary, they stayed in the most well-hidden corner of Porth Hellick Pool...

 

...but on my second visit they came very close to the hide. A rare bird on Scilly.



2 Pale-bellied Brent Geese also came in with the Geese (another Scilly scarcity, though slightly commoner than its Dark-bellied cousin, of which I saw four on the sea off St Mary's)



The pair of Pale-bellied Brent Geese together

And finally, an actual duck - a female Ring-necked - surprisingly rare perhaps given how many turn up on the mainland, but still the most common trans-Atlantic duck to appear on the islands