This autumn has been extraordinary for the number of rare birds arriving in Britain from both east and west. One after another they have provided an almost endless temptation and challenge to both my physical and mental resources.
Having just returned on Friday 2nd of October from a gruelling but particularly rewarding trip to Unst in Shetland to see a Tennessee Warbler, Mark and myself were now faced with yet another challenge to our resolve and logistical acumen, should we decide to accept it.
Following a large fall of migrants on North Ronaldsay (North Ron) Orkney on Friday, an Eyebrowed Thrush had been found amongst them and fulfilled Mark's comment, as we parted company back home in England after seeing the Tennessee Warbler, 'We will be back up there next week. Heed my words' which was, I think, made in jest. Neither of us could have known at the time how right he was.
Eyebrowed Thrushes are a mega, i.e. a very rare bird in Britain and are becoming increasingly so. The first was only seen in Britain in 1964 and, not including this latest individual on North Ronaldsay, only twenty three have appeared in Britain, averaging about one every two to three years. They are almost always discovered on offshore islands.The last one to be seen on Orkney was an adult male on 30th September 2014.
Eyebrowed Thrushes breed from the Yenisey River in Siberia east to the Sea of Okhotsk and Kamchatka, then south to Lake Baikal, northern Mongolia and Amurland.They migrate to winter in southern China, Taiwan, Indochina and Thailand then south to Singapore, Sumatra, The Phillipines and northern Borneo.
Over the weekend I kept a cursory eye on the presence of the Eyebrowed Thrush but had little inclination to head north even though it was reported on both Saturday and Sunday. On Monday Mark rang for a chat and told me the thrush was still present. Neither of us was wildly enthusiastic as we were still recovering from the Shetland trip but Mark mentioned that it was 'doable' to get to Orkney for the next day. 'Forget it' I said.
On Tuesday Mark rang me in the morning, just after nine, and told me he had worked out how to get to Orkney for Wednesday. He had checked flights from Kirkwall to North Ron and ferry times from Caithness on the Scottish mainland to Orkney and it was definitely possible but really he thought it would be foolish to attempt it and told me to say no so he could put it out of his mind. I enquired further about the logistics and a little devil inside me said 'You know you want to'.
So I said to Mark. 'Come on then let's do it!'
I then told Mark 'I would go if he would go'.
A period of mutual persuasion and dissuasion ensued between us and the upshot was we committed to go but it now required instant action if we were to get to Orkney for tomorrow.
The logistics were complicated and any one of them could let us down if we could not book certain flights and ferry times. I agreed to book the flights from Kirkwall to North Ron and also to book us on the outbound ferry from Gill's Bay in Caithness, at the very top of Scotland, to St Margaret's Hope in Orkney.Meanwhile Mark would book us into a Travel Lodge in Inverness and onto a Northlink return ferry from Stromness in Orkney to Scrabster in Caithness on Thursday. The major obstacle to success was the long drive required by car to Inverness. It was 10am and if we were to achieve our aim we had to be heading north by 1pm
Various phone calls in the next hour and a half confirmed we had both managed to get the bookings we wanted and thus we were all set. Hastily re-packing an overnight bag I had only just emptied, I loaded the car and bade farewell to my very understanding and ever tolerant wife.
Residing in two separate counties, Bedfordshire and Oxfordshire, Mark and myself agreed as per usual to meet at a mutually covenient place and we would then drive north in my car.
At 1.15pm we met at Leicester Services and just after 1.30pm we set off on the marathon drive to Inverness where we would break our journey by staying in a Travel Lodge and leave in the early hours of Wednesday to drive a further 150 miles to Gill's Bay in Caithness.
The drive north, although long, passed relatively incident free as we chatted away about everything under the sun; a bit of politics, a bit of birding, you know the score. The long tedious slog up the A9, that road of infamous average speed checks and immense frustration was completed in total darkness.The wildness of the surrounding terrain as we crested the Drumochter Summit in The Grampians was invisible but you could sense it, our car seeming to be the only vehicle on the lonely road at such a late hour.
We discussed the prospects of the thrush being there tomorrow and Mark was of the opinion it may well depart as the sky was reasonably clear. I looked at the sky and could see it was cloudy and rain squalls struck the windscreen. Good, as this would mean the thrush would be unlikely to leave the island. I felt a surge of optimism but at the same time came that usual flutter of apprehension in my stomach.What if my fragile confidence proved groundless and what would it feel like if the bird did leave tonight and we were confronted with failure on a grand scale? It's not a nice feeling but there again its counteracted by the feeling of excitement, the buzz and electric thrill of the chance of pulling something off against all the mounting odds.
We arrived in a deserted Inverness at midnight and the check in at the hotel, despite the inevitable covid procedures, was easy and straight forward and soon we were each in our own functional, clean room and preparing to get four hours sleep before departing for Caithness.
Like every other time before, sleep eluded me, probably as a result of drinking too much coffee at the various stops we made as we drove north. I lay in bed, reminding myself that at least I was lying flat on a nice bed rather than driving through the long night, as another couple of twitchers that we knew from Sussex would be doing.
Frazzled and frayed, very much out of sorts I rose at four and showered and was ready to go at 4.30am as was Mark.We refuelled the Audi with diesel at an all night Tesco and set off for the far north.In darkness, on unfamiliar roads, following lorries going north. It was far from pleasant as it was raining and the lorries cast huge plumes of spray behind them. For almost the whole way to the top of Caithness the road is only single carriageway and in the dark it is inadvisable to try overtaking. So the going was slow but we had plenty of time.The ferry did not sail until 9.30 am.
On, on and ever onwards we went, passing through Sutherland and then deep into the wastelands of Caithness. With dawn just rising and a cold northwest wind blowing we followed a single track road through what surely must be one of the last areas of true barren wilderness remaining in Britain. No one would want to live here surely, although the occasional house could be seen cowering behind a windbreak of trees.They seemed deserted, not a light in a window or any sign of life.For miles the bleak terrain stretched away, unremarkable and flat as if all life had been drained from it.
Eventually we arrived on the Caithness coast at the very top of mainland Britain and descended into Gill's Bay. A dire and unwelcoming, functional terminal of concrete and rusting iron junk. Scenic it ain't.
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| Gill's Bay just after dawn |
We began checking our birding apps for news of the Eyebrowed Thrush. With nothing else to do there was a danger of it becoming obsessional but there was no news.
We hoped the cafe would be open in the sparsely furnished reception building but there was no chance of that.I parked the car by the seawall and used the facilities in the tiny reception. I could hear voices behind a closed shutter but no one came to check on us or our booking. Glad to no longer be driving I stood on the wet concrete surrounds and looked out at an unattractive harbour and seaweed covered rocks. It could only get better. At least there was the promise of a nice morning, a little raw maybe but the sun was shining under the rapidly dispersing clouds of night. A tiny fishing boat lay half beached on the rocks and a Guillemot swam tentatively past, close in below the concrete wall. I was looking for Otters but there was no sign of one but a couple of seals were loafing in that back breaking pose they adopt on rocks with flippers and head bent upwards, the whole animal describing a crude u shape.
Rock Pipits and Pied Wagtails ran around the puddles of water that had formed in the uneven concrete surfaces. The sun, weak and watery, began to gain strength.We had an hour to wait for the ferry to arrive. A man in a high viz jacket came and gave us boarding passes and told us to park the car in lane one. No more than half a dozen other cars joined us before the ferry arrived.
Various commercial trailers were loaded first, then it was our turn to drive on and once on board we climbed some stairs to the lounge and managed to get something to eat and a coffee from the limited cafe menu. Feeling almost human after the food we retired to the open upper deck where we felt more secure from any covid virus that might be lurking to catch us unawares in the lounge. It was a classic early autumnal day in Scotland with the sun shining, the surrounding sea sparkling and the various islands that comprise Orkney looking truly spectacular with abrupt angular cliffs jutting from the sea, guarding the green pastures on the land above.
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To try and relieve the tension I seawatched from the deck. Across a panorama of sheer unadulterated beauty I found a grey and white winter plumaged Red throated Diver floating on the sea. Lines of shining white Gannets skimmed the gentle waves as Fulmars stiff winged their wandering paths in the breeze and the occasional delicate Kittiwake flew above them.
Mark checked his phone at just before 10am and delivered the dread news from Birdguides.
'It's not there. It's gone. No sign of it by 9.30', he informed me.
I have received bad news like this before on twitches but never have I felt quite such desolation and despair. We had finally pushed our luck one step too far. It was all over and we were miles from home and contemplating a miserable drive back to England. It would be truly awful.
At this precise and unpleasant moment, after the initial wave of shock, I tried to rationlise the situation. I ventured to Mark that it was not quite all over as it was still possible the thrush would be found as it had gone missing for long periods before.
Mark was less convinced.
'It's gone'. was all he could say.
I replied
'We will not know that for certain until the end of the day. Agreed it does not look good but there is a sliver of hope it will be found. We thought the Tennnessee Warbler was gone but we re-found it.There is still time.'
I was not sure quite how much I believed this but someone had to hold the line.
Having paid for the flights to and from North Ron I said we may as well go and enjoy our four hour window on the island as we would not get our money back and anyway I had never been to North Ronaldsay.That was agreed between us. We sat on the deck surrounded by a beauty that at any other time would be uplifting but at this very moment there was nothing that could console us and we could only try to accept the situation and make the best of it. Without doubt it was going to be a very long day!
I checked my RBA app and my heart skipped a beat as there was an entry about an Eyebrowed Thrush. Had it been found after all? The answer was no and would have been comical in any other situation. An Eyebrowed Thrush had been caught and ringed on Shetland this morning at around 1030am! Could this be our bird re-locating? I thought it unlikely as a thrush in autumn would surely not fly north but south and later we learned the two birds were in different plumages, so that settled our worries that our bird had gone to Shetland. It could still be here in Orkney.The sliver of hope remained intact.
We docked at St Margaret's and drove off the ferry and headed for Kirkwall, driving through pleasant sunshine and the verdant green landscape of Orkney which is so different to the brown barrenness of Shetland. Mark checked his Birdguides app to see if by some miracle there was any news on the Eyebrowed Thrush being found but there wasn't. There was however news of a Red flanked Bluetail that had just been found some forty minutes drive from Kirkwall.
'Let's go and see that before we fly to North Ron' Mark suggested
I was all for that, although it was hardly to be a consolation for dipping the Eyebrowed Thrush but at least we would have something to show for our madness..
We were well on the way to the bluetail when Mark's phone rang and it was Adrian. I took little notice at first but something in Mark's tone as he listened to Adrian got my full attention. SuddenlyMark turned our world upside down as he shouted out in triumph and relief.
'It's still here.The thrush has been found!!!'.
Here in a nutshell was twitching and why we do it. From despair to elation took a millisecond. I could hardly believe it as all my weariness and despondency evaporated with those magical words from Mark. It really was true, the thrush had been reported at just after eleven. Someome had found it in its usual place on the island.and Adrian had rung to confirm the message in case we had not seen it.
But steady, we still had to see it and that was far from guaranteed for it could take some time to find it and we only had four hours on the island to do it. This did not dampen our spirits one bit as we now knew we had a great opportunity to see this ultra rare wanderer from Siberia.
We immediately gave up on the bluetail and returned to Kirkwall, driving straight to the airport, parked the car and entered the tiny terminal building to check in for our flight which was an hour away. We were joined by another six fellow twitchers who had just arrived on a flight from Shetland and they recounted their various triumphs or not at seeing the Tennessee Warbler, which had become very erratic in its appearances. We tried not to look smug. One of their number recounted how it had so far cost him over a £1000.00 in airline tickets to try and see the warbler but he still had not been successful and was going to throw more money at it by going back to Shetland after seeing the thrush.Worse still his wife was completely unaware of how much money he had spent on the warbler as he had not told her.
We boarded a tiny two engine aircraft and took off at 1335 from Kirkwall on a pleasant early afternoon. A seventeen minute flight took us out over a calm sea and the flat islands that comprise Orkney lay below us, green cut out origami shapes of land, dominated by sea and sky.
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There was no sign of the thrush but many Redwings were feeding in the fields along with the ubiquitous flocks of Starlings. We checked and re-checked everything that looked remotely like it could be the Eyebrowed Thrush but failed to find it. We spread out around the two crofts, each of us maintaining a social distance as required, scanning the fields, endlessly searching. For half an hour, probably longer we looked in vain. I decided to follow two of my fellow twitchers back around the square of single track roads that surrounded the two crofts. I stopped to scan a movement but it was only a Robin in some nettles. Looking to my right I saw and heard John, one of my fellow twitchers calling and motioning to his friend Chris to come urgently.This could mean only one thing, he had found the thrush. I raced the fifty or so metres to join them by a deserted croft. There was no sign of Mark or the others. John pointed to a low, broken down, drystone wall thirty or so metres away from us.
In a state of some excitement he said
'It's there, right in front of us perched on the wall on that large stone. Right there. Fantastic.'
I looked in my bins and there it was, the Eyebrowed Thrush, slap bang in front of us as John had said it was. It was unalarmed and perched there for a few minutes. I raised my camera and fired away, ten frames per second as this may be my one and only chance to photograph an Eyebrowed Thrush.
The others, now alerted, arrived in a panic asking where it was but eventually everyone settled and saw the thrush, still perched on the wall and looking around.
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| The wall in the centre of the pic was where we got our first sight of the Eyebrowed Thrush |
For a minute more it remained where it was and then flew to a more distant metal gate and perched there for a couple of minutes before dropping down into the field and out of sight behind a ruined farm building.
We moved around to another area to view it and found it feeding in the grass but it did not stop long before flying further away to feed in and around an iris bed under another ancient and crumbling drystone wall.
What a fabulous feeling it was to see it so well and so relatively quickly. As I watched, it was hassled by a Greenland Wheatear and flew to a fence post and perched there for a while, allowing more intense scrutiny of its plumage and giving all around enjoyment. We had done it and nothing now could improve our day.The feeling was a truly heady combination of relief, triumph and just sheer joy at seeing a new bird, a very rare bird, requiring a huge amount of effort against all the odds.
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| c Mark |
This had been the best chance to see it close to and, for the remainder of the time it was a little more distant although still visible perfectly well in my binoculars. About the size of a Song Thrush it was a subtly coloured bird, the upperparts medium brown and its breast and flanks dull rufous orange with a distinct white belly. Its head was slightly greyer brown than the rest of the upperparts with noticeable long white supercilia stretching from the bill to behind the eyes and a large white crescent below each eye.The inner greater coverts were tipped with white signifying it was a first year bird. Its bill was mainly black but noticeably yellow on the lower mandible.
With an hour and a half to spare before the plane was due to take us back to Kirkwall I wandered off to walk to the Observatory a mile and a half away. A Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler had been found beyond the Observatory but it was too far away to get to in time, which was a shame as I would love to have seen it but you cannot have everything. The walk along the roads produced a good selection of migrant birds such as Northern Wheatears, Blackcaps, Common Redstarts, Goldcrests, a bright yellow Willow Warbler, a possible Bluethroat and most noticeably a large number of Robins, that were all hopping along the fence lines, in and out of ditches or on the drystone walls guarding the fields. Two ringtail Hen Harriers quartered a field of rough grass and Ringed Plovers and Turnstones pattered amongst the seaweed on a deserted beach of white sand.
The northwest wind was gathering strength and rain squalls made life unpleasant so I returned to the landing strip and rejoined the others and shortly after the aircraft arrived to take us back to Kirkwall. Once back on the main island, Mark and myself had some fish and chips in Kirkwall and then visited a superstore to buy some beer and snacks before driving to Stromness where we waited for the ferry to arrive.
This was a master stroke of Mark's as we could drive the car onto the ferry at 8pm and then go to our pre-booked cabin to spend the night on the ferry as it lay at the quayside, before departing for Scrabster at 6am the next morning. Never was a bunk, a cup of tea and a couple of bottles of Dark Island Beer more welcome and inevitably, after being awake for more than twenty four hours I was soon fast asleep.
I awoke the next morning and part of the deal was a free breakfast on board ship as it made the two hour crossing to Scrabster. The composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davis lived on Orkney, at Stromness, and via my phone I played his haunting and gentle composition called 'Farewell to Stromness' as the ferry moved across the sea. It seemed to capture the moment.
A report of a Radde's Warbler at Duncansby Head was tempting as it is only a few miles from Scrabster so we made our way there after the ship docked and a yomp through an extensive iris bed failed to locate it but we did flush a Pallas's Warbler, a Yellow browed Warbler and half a dozen tired Goldcrests.
We left for the south at 11am as a rainbow bade us farewell and, sharing the driving, we were home twelve hours later at just before midnight.
Please let that be it for a while.
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