Shetland day 4: the tipping point?

During our first 3 days on Shetland we had worked hard in challenging conditions for relatively little reward: there had been plenty of birds, and a couple of good ones, but nothing to justify breaking out the cigars. After another morning grilling the gardens of Hoswick and finding yet more Yellow-browed Warblers, we felt we had earned the right to go and look at other people's birds for the rest of the day. Specifically, a Rustic Bunting at Melby, back on the western mainland, in an area which, frustratingly, we had checked thoroughly a couple of days previously.

Rustic Bunting, Melby

Rustic Bunting, Melby

The Rustic Bunting showed soon after our arrival, feeding on the verge but before I could get a decent record shot a car approached and flushed the bird. Fortunately, it landed much closer, enabling a couple of half-decent pictures to be obtained. A few minutes later, and we were bundling back into the car to head north for the first 'mega-alert' of the trip: a Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler had been found at Barnafield, a good 40 miles drive away in north Mainland.

This Black Guillemot moulting to winter plumage was just offshore at Melby

One of my favourite birds, known in these parts as the Tystie

Having been quick off the mark, and not seeing too many birders on our travels over the previous few days, we thought we might be among the first on site - a bit of a miscalculation as the major rarity had brought all the birders on Shetland out of the woodwork. We joined an expectant group of about 50 in an orderly assemblage around a small iris bed with a stream at its base. Within a few minutes we had seen the 'PG Tips' - named for the white tail tips - fly from an iris bed to some nettles, revealing a long, dark tail with the eponymous tips in the process. It was partially obscured and characteristically skulking when on the ground, but was on view just long enough to grab some record shots and piece together the key features.

Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler, Barnafield

A new species for my British list, it crept stealthily down through the nettles, revealing yellow underparts

One of this species had been seen a few weeks previously in Norfolk, but reports of bad behaviour at the twitch meant I had no desire to go searching for that particular individual, so it was great to see one with a small and orderly crowd. Some of them, including fellow Dorset birder Roger Howell, had waited several decades to catch up with this species so it was a special experience for all of us. Well done to the finders for checking out the iris bed, of which there must be thousands on Shetland which look equally if not more promising.

On the ground the PG Tips showed a dark, streaky crown, dark tail and hint of a rusty brown rump...

... and a prominent supercilium compared to other locustella warblers

We left the PG Tips just as the weather turned foul again, and the route home provided an opportunity to cruise the Aith-Vementry road where a Short-toed Lark had been seen earlier in the day. It was bucketing down and we didn't hold out much hope, especially as no-one fancied getting out of the car when we arrived at the site.

Earlier in the day we caught up with a putative Siberian Oystercatcher of the sub-species longipes at Sandwick - picked out from the regular Oycs by its browner upperparts - as Howard pointed out, if it is one, it was probably the rarest bird on Shetland that day.

Our home for the week (bottom left) near the beach in Hoswick

Miraculously though, the Lark was still there, grovelling in the gutter and looking about as water-logged as a passerine can look - another reminder of the trials which migrant birds are subjected to. Heart-warmingly, it survived the night and was still present the following morning, though we became quite concerned for its welfare a second time as the weather closed in again that afternoon.

The barely recognisable Short-toed Lark near Aith looking pretty sorry for itself in horizontal rain

Birders looking for the PG Tips - the largest crowd we saw in our nine days on Shetland

A face in the sun

Evening sunshine bathed Portland Bill on a visit after work on Tuesday but the long-staying Short-toed Lark remained resolutely in the shade, just allowing its head and back to catch the sun from time to time. It eventually made its way down the track towards me. This time a considerate dog walker held back to allow me to carry on shooting; but like Sunday's tractor, ultimately he could not suppress the urge to press on and the Lark flushed again.

 

Family fun

I'd heard mixed reports about the ease with which a recent Short-toed Lark at Portland Bill could be seen. Some said it was nice and confiding, others found it difficult to catch up with. Attempting to connect with it this weekend was complicated slightly by the need to visit family in Devon with two boisterous sons in tow. Both have inherited their father's low boredom threshold, but not his passion for standing around in the cold waiting for rare birds to appear.

Short-toed Lark. I might have got closer, but a considerate tractor-driver who stopped for us when he realised we were watching the bird eventually had to move along the track which inevitably flushed it.

On the way down on Saturday I resisted the temptation to recourse to bribery, figuring that it would be good for them to learn a bit of patience. A mistake, with hindsight: we missed the lark by five minutes, boredom soon set in (them not me) and I was nagged into giving up after a short vigil.

Green Sandpiper: connoisseur of Devon ditches

On the way back from Devon on Sunday, I was better prepared: the Nintendo DS was fully charged and loaded - with Junior Brain Trainer, I hasten to add, lest I be accused of corrupting my own kids with shoot 'em up games just to buy time for a twitch. As if. This, I have belatedly discovered, will generally give at least an hour of trouble free birding. So I parked them on a picnic blanket, with Kitkats, next to the Lark's favoured track. This seemed to work, as I saw the bird almost straight away about 100 yards from our hastily erected base camp. 

Grey Wagtail: another ditch dweller. Amazing how little water these birds will settle for. My sister had a basement apartment in Brighton with a wholly enclosed 10ft by 10ft courtyard garden surrounded by several storeys of flats on every side, into which leaked an overflow pipe. The first and only bird on her garden list? Grey Wagtail. 

Between all this merriment, whilst in Devon, an unpromising looking culvert at the end of Mum and Dad's road, which held a Dipper and a Kingfisher on my last visit, turned up a Green Sand and a Grey Wag on this occasion. Apparently they get Otters there too so it must be vying with the PC World drain in Poole for the title of best ditch in the South West.

Sons plus cousin Ethan. Happiest when not twitching.

The main attraction in Devon was neither avian nor animal though: baby Jonathan, recently arrived third nephew from my brother's brood, down from Scotland for a few days, is very much a human, and a bonny one at that. I'd never seen him before, so that's at least one tick this October. And surely a brownie point for mentioning almost the entire family in a single post.

Short-tempered Lark

Another Dorset tick this morning with a pre-work twitch for the Short-toed Lark present for several days on Portland. While staying mostly on the ground this bird didn't hang about, motoring between the furrows of a ploughed field with visible impatience.