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.

Shetland day 2 - wind and hard work

A difficult day today with hard work and less reward compared to yesterday, but still pretty good. Bad weather today - strong SW west and sort of wet most of the time. Started off early. In Paul's garden 5 yellow-brows, they were really everywhere today. By 10:00 I already had about 25. 

Yellow-browed Warbler

I recorded these two in a duet:

The walk down to Roger's via Virkie was alright but hard work. Birds kept very low and quiet because of the wind. Highlight was a Bluethroat I found in a ditch above Virkie. I flushed it twice, enough to see it was a Bluethroat with the tail pattern etc. but honestly I don't even know if it was a male or female. Nice bird to find but I would trade it happily with a proper sibe. More pipits around today, plus several Redwings and a Fieldfare. Quite a few Pinkfeet went through in the morning, and some landed in the fields for a rest en route from Iceland to Norfolk:

Pink-footed Goose

Pool of Virkie had three Grey Plovers, some Barwits etc. Met up with Martin and we walked back to Roger's, more yellow brows...

Bring it on!

In the afternoon we were determined to see some birds despite the awful weather. We first made the mistake and tried the Arctic Warbler at Weisdale again. Stood around like idiots in horrible wind, watched a Sycamore shaking like crazy and glimpsed the warbler for a split second. We agreed this was not much fun so we went on to watch real, big, showy birds. We started off with gulling at the tip of Weisdale. There were several argentatus herrings, a Little Gull and this hybrid Glaucous X Herring type thing -interesting wingtip pattern, even the unmoulted P10 is odd: 

There was this group of Red-breasted Mergansers there, and also 7 Goosanders flew over:

Red-breasted Mergansers

Then we checked ducks on Tingwall Loch. No interesting aythyas among the tufteds, but this juvenile Goldeneye made us get out of the car and grab our scopes. Interesting bird, tiny with small bill, half-developed head shape, and dark eye:

Then in the late afternoon shorebird in Virkie again. More commoner stuff but nothing new. 

Hoping for some better weather in the next few days!

Shetland day 1 - boom! What a day

A great first day on Shetland - couldn't have asked for much more. Early in the morning Paul dropped me off at Hestingott to look for the long-staying Blyth's Reed Warbler there. At first it was cold and I 'only' had about four Yellow-browed warblers in that garden there. As the sun warmed the atmosphere up a bit, there was more bird activity in the sunlit side of the garden and sure enough the Blyth's reed showed very well. It was feeding busily on insects and I had plenty of time to study the important ID features: bold supercilium, very cold toned flanks and underparts, generally very plain from above - especially tertials and alula very plain, with slightly contrasting rufous wing panel, short primary projection, and long and broad tail, often cocked up.

Blyth's Reed Warbler, Hestingott, Shetland

In this image the very blunt-tipped and rounded wing is apparent - P4 clearly emarginated, and P3 is equal in length to P2 and P4 is only slightly shorter: 

I was very pleased to see this bird - it was a WP tick for me, and it has been many years since I last saw one in India. 

  

After I had enough of this bird, I walked down Toab and birded in the gardens there. Very soon I came across another acro in a garden, and immediately I knew it's another blyth's - my eyes were tuned in on the ID features I had studied just a short while before. It showed quite well too. Again in this image you can see the whole set of features:

Blyth's Reed Warbler, Toab, Shetland

I was really chuffed with this bird - to find one after two hours of birding in Shetland was quite awesome. 

There were many Yellow-browed Warblers today - by far the commonest migrant around. My daily total must have been over 20. Some showed pretty well, such sweet little tough birds:

This individual is on the duller end of the variation spectrum, but not quite there for a hume's:

There were 3-4 Wheatears here and there:

I met up with Martin, Sharon and Will and we headed slowly towards Lerwick to pick up our car. Soon we received news about a pod of 5 Killer Whales of Boddam. We spent the next couple of hours trying to intercept them as they made their way slowly north, but sadly failed. We did have to cute Otters though. After a short stop in Lerwick I checked with Will the area of Leebotten, Noness and Sandwick. There were plenty more yellow-brows and one Lesser Whitethroat that Martin says must be a blythi, and that's it more or less. Two Harbour Porpoises were nice. Several flocks of Pink-footed Geese went through all day long:

Rock Pipit

Meadow Pipit

In the afternoon Martin, Ian and I headed to the wild west to chase after the Pechora Pipit at Norby. We saw it quite quickly with a large group that was there. Mainly brief, silent flight views but it did perch exposed for a few seconds after having a dip in a small stream:

Pechora Pipit, Norby, Shetland

These images don't do it justice. The bird is very wet here and plumage patterns are diluted. In typical views the mantle pattern was bold, and the head pattern was nicer. Another great bird, another WP tick. Gripped.

On the way back we stopped for the Arctic Warbler at Weisdale Voe. It was wet and cold and windy and it was getting dark, but we did relocate the bird and I had brief views of it. Not the best views ever but good enough to identify. Yet another quality bird to end this fantastic day!

Can't wait till tomorrow. Good night.

Shetland Appetiser

On my way to Shetland now for a week of exploration and frontier birding with Martin and Sharon. This is my 40th treat to myself. I have read about Shetland from a very young age, so this is a real dream come true. Yesterday Martin asked me what am I looking forward to most. So I want to kick bushes and find rarities; I want to photograph them; I want to enjoy the wild scenery; I want to enjoy some spectacular migration experiences; I want to explore some interesting species, variation and ID limits issues; I want to spend time with good friends; and I want to see some good rarities found by others...

These are among the birds at the top of my list - not the rarest of all but I'd be very happy to find or see at least one of them. Images courtesy of James Lowen - he took them in Shetland last year:

Pechora Pipit

 Lanceolated Warbler

I will be spending long days in the field and will probably be knackered in the evenings, but I will do my best to update the blog regularly. Stay posted!

Acadian twitch and bonus!

As I was heading out to work this morning a flood of messages started raining on me, and 15 minutes later I was heading to Dungeness NNR to twitch what was then an Empidonax sp., a notoriously difficult to identify group of American flycathcers. It would be my first Nearctic landbird in the WP, and the first images that came out demonstrated that the bird was showing ridiculously well, so I was very keen to go. I joined James, Will and Michael and as we sped down the motorways we learned that the bird is an Acadian or Yellow-bellied Flycatcher. It went missing, then it reappeared and we all sighed in relief. By the time we got there it evolved into 'probable Acadian'. We arrived in Dungennes at about 14:00 and it was pissing down with rain. Really horrible weather. The bird was sheltering in a private garden with no access and limited views. Because of the weather the bird didn't show for the first hour or so, but slowly it did become active again and eventually showed reasonably well by the front of the house. It was never a crowd-pleaser though - all its appearances were rather brief and then it would disappear back into the depth of the garden. I was badly positioned among the large crowd so missed the best photo opps but had good views of it. I am no expert on empid ID at all, but from what I gather the identification as Acadian Flycatcher seems correct - long primary projection, greenish above:

Acadian Flycatcher

 It's a 1cy - obvious moult limit in greater coverts, and pointed tail feathers:

There seems to be another feature to separate Acadian from Yellow-bellied - whether P6 is emarginated or not. So this bird does not have emargination on P6 therefore it should be an Acadian.

If accepted as Acadian, it is a monster WP record. The only previous record was of one found dead in Iceland in November 1967!

Good to meet up with lots of friends there. I wish we had more time and better weather to explore Dungeness and its crickets but that will have to wait for another time as we had another bird to see. The only other bird of note at Dungeness was a Yellow Wagtail.

Our next stop was RSPB Vange Marshes in Essex. Beautiful small wetland just off the A13. We headed the to see the Wilson's Phalarope that took up residence there since yesterday. We parked the car and walked off the road. The bird was showing well albeit very distant. We enjoyed good scope views but photography was rubbish. It was feeding very actively in the open water. Not sure about its age.

Wilson's Phalarope 

This was another lifer for me - I did not see any during my visits to the USA.

There were quite a few other shorebirds there - 4 (!) Little Stints, Green Sandpiper etc.

Then it was the long way back home. Many thanks to James, Will and Michael for the good time. Bird on!

RSPB Titchwell

Went with my family and another family of friends to Titchwell. Haven't birded there for quite a long time and really enjoyed it. It's such a great place for families - the kids enjoyed an all-around wildlife experience, the parents had some minutes of peace and quiet when the kids played on the beach, and I even managed to see some half-decent Norfolk scarcities. Highlights were 2 Little Stints and 2 Curlew Sands, four Spoonbills and a Peregrine (don't believe I'm writing this). On the sea some scoters and Red-throated Divers. 

I was carrying too many children and their stuff on my back today, so left my camera at home. Played around with phonescoping - it was quite fun. All these images were taken through Swarovski ATX95 with handheld Samsung Galaxy S2:

2 Little Stints

Curlew

Oystercatcher