The garden at Grutness was also proving attractive to a Common Rosefinch which would join the resident House Sparrows feeding on seed put out for them in some bare sycamores by the owners.
The rosefinch had been seen here several times but then would mysteriously disappear and no one was quite sure where it went.
The mystery was solved when it was found feeding with a flock of around fifteen House Sparrows at the back of the nearby beach at Grutness Voe.The distance as a rosefinch flies being no more than a few hundred metres
For the most part the bird spent its time feeding on weeds on a patch of waste ground between the back of the beach and the road but occasionally would fly back to the garden to feed there.
However the House Sparows did not appreciate its company and would bully it, causing it to perch a little apart from them in the garden and it would not be long before it returned to the back of the beach to feed in the tangle of dead sorrel and various other plants where it was left alone.
This is the archetypal 'birders bird'. Invariably any Common Rosefinches on Shetland are first winter birds in what can only be described as an underwhelming dowdy plumage of unremarkable brown feathers, only slightly alleviated by pale buff tips to its median and greater coverts forming two distinctive wing bars on each wing and broad buff fringes to its tertials.Its underparts are paler buff and heavily streaked and its rather plain face accentuates its prominent dark beady eyes. Apart from that it resembles a female House Sparrow in its plain-ness and one has to look carefully to make it out, hidden amongst the sparrows and tangles of dead seaweed and sorrel.Even when perched higher it was hardly distinctive.
Common Rosefinches breed over most of northern Asia and parts of eastern and central Europe and breed as close to Shetland as Sweden. They are scarce autumn visitors to the Northern Isles with birds regularly spending a few weeks on Shetland. I have never not seen one or more on my annual autumn trips to Shetland. This year I have seen three.
The rose coloured plumage only comes with adulthood which can often take two years to achieve.
I spent a happy two hours photographing the rosefinch both on the beach and in the garden as other birders came and went, the majority unimpressed by its dowdiness and giving it the soubriquet 'Grotfinch' but nonetheless glad to add it to their trip list on what was a quiet day for birds on Shetland. Few birders lingered long in its presence before moving on.
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