Shetland day 3 - Winds of change

Too late to blog so I will do it short. Hey, sleep is completely over-rated. Difficult weather in the morning. Force 7 westerlies but I headed out anyway. Walked through Clevygarth towards Virkie. Hoped for a Buff-breasted sand or something like that but nothing good. Few passerine migrants but plenty of snipe on the wetland. Among the 50 or so commons were at least 8 Jack Snipe - not bad. A pair of Bonxies followed me closely:

Then I went with Gary to Lerwick to do some stuff. There were about 200 Eiders in the harbour, and two sweet Black Guilelmots:

Whooper Swans on Clikcimin Loch:

Then suddenly the wind dropped, the rain stopped and the sun came out. It smelt like sibes in the air... We checked Hellendale and Seaview in Lerwick, there were some fresh migrants in - Goldcrests, Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps, Lesser Whitethraot, Grey Wagtail and quite many yellow-brows, but nothing more than that. We decided to give the OBP a miss. There was this Purple Sandpiper roosting with knots on the shoreline:

Red Knots

In the afternoon a short walk with Roger in Exanboe produced very little, only a Merlin that flew past. In the evening following a lovely dinner with Becca and Phil (thanks!), I gave a talk to Shetland Bird Club - it was a fun evening!

The wind really dropped this afternoon and the weather from Sunday onwards looks much more promising. So with some new birds today I am optimistic towards the weekend. Good night.

Almost perfect Scilly twitch

On Friday night I embarked on my first ever mega-island-twitch. Together with Nick, James and Dave we went for the Great Blue Heron that has been present now for about two weeks on the Isles of Scilly, the 2nd ever in the UK. For me it was also my first opportunity to visit these famous islands, so obviously I was very excited about this trip. We left Norwich before midnight and at first light we were parked at the Marazion Marsh carpark to recuperate a bit after the long drive. The others tried to catch a few minutes of sleep and I tried to see if the Pacific Diver that had wintered there was still present. It was not, but then I saw a Great White Egret roosting in the woods behind the reserve, so I had to wake the guys up. Common bird in Israel, but still pretty good in the UK and not bad as a first bird of the day. The egret soon left the roost and disappeared into the marsh.

Then we headed into Penzance for breakfast. 12 Purple Sandpipers were still present by the swimming pool:

Purple Sandpiper and Turnstone

All morning flights were fully booked so we took the Scillonian. As we were boarding the boat we got news about a Hudsonian Godwit in Somerset, not too far away. Immediately we started calculating how to combine a sweet little detour on the way back with our plans to head back home as quickly as possible. Not easy.

Quite a few seabirds were seen along the passage until we sailed past Land's End: several good rafts of Manx Shearwater, quite many auks (Guillemots, Puffins and Razorbills), and one Fulmar.

Manx Shearwaters

When we sailed into St. Mary's harbour we had distant views of a Long-tailed Duck:

Quickly we caught a speedboat to Bryher, for the main dish. The Great Blue Heron was quickly spotted as it flew in to Big Pool and showed well to the medium crowd that came on the Scillonian. At first the weather was poor, and the bird looked quite miserable too:

Great Blue Heron

Then the rain got lighter and the bird walked around a bit and tried to fish. What a cool bird! Forgot how massive they are compared to Grey Herons.

  

After we were satisfied with our views, as much as possible in these awful weather conditions, we went into the village to celebrate with a beautiful Lemon Drizzle at the Vine Cafe. On the way up stopped for a panoramic view of the heron and its surroundings - see it down at the bottom?

We spent the next few hours birding Bryher, as it felt that there were some fesh migrants in, possibly knocked down by the foul weather. As an Israeli I had to work hard on myself to get excited by the few migrants around, but the locals were quite choughed with our good fortunes: we had two Wrynecks, one Golden Oriole, 8 Tree Pipits, 3 Whitethroats, several Willow Warblers and three Wheatears. In addition, I had a probable Sibe Chiffchaff below Samson Hill. I had too brief views but it looked good. Unfortunately we had to run for the boat back to St. Mary's so I couldn't nail it. Too bad.

Wryneck

During the walk back to the Key where the boat waited for us the sun came out and it became quite beautiful. I desperately scoped Big Pool of Tresco hoping to see the Black Duck but failed to string any ducks there.

Shag

We had an hour to kill before the Scillonian took us back to the mainland, so we birded the Garrison that was completely devoid of migrants. Peculiar to see these black rabbits all over the place there:

Good to see House Sparrows and Song Thrushes are doing very good on Scilly:

2cy Song Thrush - note moult limit in GC

We got into Penzance close to midnight and were too knackered to go anywhere. We found accommodation nearby and decided to hit Shapwick Heath early in the morning despite the fact that the Hudsonian Godwit had taken off with a flock of blackwits yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately the bird did not return this morning. Really classic. All blackwits return, only the one bird of interest does not. 

Icelandic Black-tailed Godwits - sadly all with neat white underwings

We heard there some heartbreaking stories about birders who came from NE Scotland to miss the bird by an hour etc., so our situation was not that tragic. We were all disappointed by not seeing the bird we wanted, however I enjoyed the superb reserve. During the short time we were there we had 2-3 booming Bitterns, Wood Sand, Garden and Willow Warblers, one Cuckoo and generally pretty birdy there. The drive back home was uneventful.

Despite the slightly sour flavour that ended our trip for not seeing the Hudwit, still it was a mega experience. I really enjoyed the Scillies - very unique and beautiful (when the sun came out). Of course our main target, the heron, was great indeed, and we added some more quality birds.

Huge thanks to my brothers in arms - Nick, James and Dave.

Iceland Gull at Weybourne

This morning I went birding with Quentin along the N coast. Beautiful day with spring temperatures and good sunshine. Used the lowest ISO levels in a long time. We started off searching for the first-winter Iceland Gull that had been present around Weybourne for the last week or so. It eluded us for a while but eventually we pinned it down on the beach, near the public carpark. It showed very well. Nice bird - this is only my second ever, and today's views were much better than the rather brief flyby views I had last time. We watched it quietly until it was flushed by dog walkers and landed in the water.

Iceland Gull - first-winter, digiscoped with Swarovski ATX95 and Canon 40D

And these are with my regular camera:

  

While searching for the gull we bumped into four Purple Sands in Sheringham, but not much else.

After we were satisfied with the gull, we had time for a quick look at Cley. There were many birds in front of the main hides but nothing interesting. Impressive flock of about 400 Golden Plovers but no americans among them.

Along Beach Road there was a nice flock of about 700 Brents; no blacks or pale-bellies among them either. I suppose they will be off soon.

NL day 5 - proper birding at last!

At last had time today for a full day of proper birding. Left early with Gert and Reinoud Vermoolen and we headed west to Zeeland. We met there Pim Wolf. Pim is just awesome - he really knows every bird and stone on Zeeland (though there are no stones on Zeeland). 

We started off at the beach of Brouwersdam, despite the wind and cold. No sign of the hoped-for Great Northern Diver but lots of seaducks and divers. Highlights for me included two Long-tailed Ducks (male and female) that gave much better views than my previous bird, but still difficult to phtograph. Also five Velvet Scoters with the many commons, about 15 Slav Grebes, one Black-throated Diver among the numerous reds and two distant Ruddy Shelducks. Later on we found some Purple Sandpipers feeding on the rocky seawall - they are such tough little shorebirds. I really enjoyed watching this obliging individual fighting the waves.

Purple Sandpiper 

Something for my Israeli followers:

Common Goldeneye

And for gullers:

argenteus Herring Gull 2cy

We continued working our way through the island, where we encountered huge numbers of geese. This was the goosiet day I've ever had. We had in total today 9 proper species of goose and another two plastic species. So at first we started scanning through the large flocks of white-fronts, barnacles, brent and bean. We found one Pink-footed, and then we found two Pale-bellied Brents at Scharendijke - here's a record shot of one of them:

Pale-bellied Brent (center)

We continued birding and enjoyed a selection of geese, ducks and shorebirds, and some groups of Bewick's and Whooper Swans. Especially productive were the Polders south of Burgh-Haamstede. We had there some Hen Harriers, a Goshawk and best - a superb adult Black Brant. Much better than the two hybrids I had in the UK! Look at this full collar, almost connecting in the back of the neck. Also note how much the dark belly extends beyond the belly, and the solid dark mantle.

Black Brant - adult

A bit east of Burgh-Haamstede we found this fine adult Rough-legged Buzzard as it was fighting the wind for some minutes. Great views but light was shit. 

 Rough-legged Buzzard

This is the best I managed to get of the uppertail pattern:

After we said goodbye to Pim, we headed to Oudeland van Strijen in very poor weather. Again tons of geese. Couldn't find the red-breasted that was showing there in the morning - I guess perhaps we were reluctant to work the geese outside of the car because of the rain. We did manage to locate two Lesser White-fronts though - good views but again poor light conditions so the images don't do them any justice - they are very smart-looking geese.

Lesser White-fronted Goose

On the way back home checked the lake at Barendrecht but for the first time in eight winters the Bufflehead didn't show. Bummer.

But nevermind - it was a great day, good company, weather could have been better but could have been worse also. Tomorrow I return home - looking forward to some warm sunny weather. Many thanks to all of my friends and colleagues in UK & NL - BTO, Sovon, DBA, Gert, Martin, Tristan, Tormod, Chris, Nick, Andy, Rob, Vincent, Arjan, Reinoud and Pim are just few of the great people I met - you all made this trip highly successful and so much fun.