The morning I arrived on Shetland I had planned to travel immediately to Unst to see a very rare Eastern Bonelli's Warbler but it had done a bunk that previous night so I abandoned plans to travel to Unst but decided to go to Yell which lies between Mainland and Unst, the reason being a Short toed Lark had been found by Adrian K at a place called Otterswick.
Short toed Larks are an annual rarity on Shetland, their infrequent visits often linked to weather patterns I have seen three on Shetland, remarkably one on each of the main three islands of Mainland, Unst and now Yell. They breed in southern Europe and northwest Africa and fromTurkey and southern Russia to Mongolia.The European populations move south in winter to the southern edge of the Sahara.
Yell is very different to Mainland with human habitation much less evident and the road that runs across the island to Gutcher, where you get the ferry to Unst, is a usually deserted ribbon of tarmac passing through barren moorland, the landscape's raw beauty populated by little else but sheep, the sea forever evident, stretching away into vaguely glimpsed distant landmassses below huge skies
Otterswick is seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but then most places on Yell are and the single track road the lark was feeding beside was even smaller and narrower than the road I turned off to get to it.
I arrived at Otterswick to find Adrian, who has realised his dream of moving to Shetland, forsaking running a business in Essex to settle for a very different and apparently more satisfying life on Yell, already staking out the road from his car at the top end by a single empty house. He told me the lark liked to feed at the edge of the road where the grass verge met the tarmac. He suggested I go back down the road and park at the bottom by a cattle grid and the lark would come down between us on the road to feed. He further advised the lark was very flighty so we had to remain in our cars if we wished to see it.
At the moment the road was only frequented by a handful of those ubiquitous Shetland residents Starlings but as instructed I waited in my car lower down the road for the lark to return which was apparently feeding somewhere in the fields to our left.
To encourage it back Adrian put some seed down by the roadside and sure enough after a litle wait the lark returned to feed on it. Unfortunately my position precluded any photos due to distance.
Adrian left and I took his place which was nearer where the lark had been feeding at the top of the road. Due to the road being, from what I could see, deserted and unused I parked at an angle across the road allowing me an unrestricted view down the road to where the lark liked to feed. If a car came I could always move my car to the side but one did
I waited quite some time with no one else arriving and eventually the lark pitched down onto the road and shuffled about picking at the seed along with the Starlings. I remained in my car and took my photos from the car window. For five minutes it fed contentedly with the Starlings and looked settled but something alarmed the Starlings and the lark flew with the Starlings and was gone.
I waited hoping for its imminent return and whilst the Starlings did come back the lark did not.
One of the many bird tour groups that come to Shetland at this time of year arrived at the bottom of the road and stood around waiting but the lark remained absent.After thirty minutes I decided to accept I had been fortunate to be here when no one else but Adrian was around and left it at that.
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