A Golden Oriole at Aith in Shetland 3rd October 2024

A report of a Rosy Starling associating with its commoner cousins in a berry hedge at Aith and subsequently in surrounding fields yesterday, found us heading northwards once more this morning. It was another sunny day but the strong wind made it feel a bit raw.

This was very much a speculative trip as the starling could now be anywhere in the coastal village of Aith. As we arrived much more sensational news came via the Shetland Scarce Bird News WhatsApp Group as it informed us that a Golden Oriole had recently been seen in trees by the Charity Shop in Aith. How convenient that we were at that very moment just approaching Aith and we soon found the Charity Shop and somewhere to park right beside it.

All thoughts of the Rosy Starling were abandoned as neither of us had ever seen a Golden Oriole on Shetland and in Autumn they are a very rare bird and only marginally less uncommon in Spring. In fact it has been a very long while since I have seen a Golden Oriole in Britain, the last was when they used to breed at Lakenheath  in Suffolk, more years ago than I can remember.

An additional incentive to catch up with this bird, if one were needed, was the fact we had dipped one, possibly this very same bird, yesterday in a conifer plantation at the Loch of Brouster, near Walls, the bird having flown off strongly to the east just ten minutes before we got to the plantation.

There was no sign of the bird at Aith when we arrived so we split up to cover those parts of Aith that looked to have suitable trees. I met another birder who told me that about thirty minutes ago he had seen it fly from the garden of a house with large sycamores that was just down the road from the Charity Shop  and it looked to have landed in a row of willows near to the local school a few hundred metres away. I wandered over to the willows but there was no sign of the oriole or even the Rosy Starling for that matter.

The news of the oriole naturally brought other birders to Aith too and after some forty minutes of fruitless searching it was discovered back in the garden of  the house it had originally flown from, feeding in the sycamores that surrounded it. Around twenty birders gathered at the gate of the house and scrutinised the driveway and its line of sycamore trees. The oriole was a nightmare to locate in the leaves of the large trees, its colouring matching to perfection the faded greens and yellows of the dead and dying leaves and to add to our misery the constant movement of the leaves, stirred by the strong wind effectively masked any movement of the oriole.

Various cries of I can see it or There it is inevitably came too late to be of use as the bird effectively hid itself in the tree it was occupying

Frustration levels began to rise

For quite a while all I could detect was the fleeting silhouette of the bird before it was lost amongst the leaves again. We moved to the side of the house where a small cul de sac granted us a different aspect into the garden.

It was a tight squeeze and there were more birders than room so it was far from comfortable viewing..The oriole moved from tree to tree but persistently contrived to remain either invisible or viewable for a few seconds only.

Eventually it showed itself to some for a little longer but I was in the wrong place and failed to see it. More frustration and no little despair! Then suddenly and thrillingly I saw it clearly in the top of a sycamore, peering around searching for prey. It was for moments only but enough to see its greenish yellow upperparts, dark wings and white, dark streaked breast. 

Judging by its plumage I think this bird is a first year male

Many birders having seen the oriole were satisfied with their views of it and departed and hey presto with less of a crowd .the oriole showed itself more frequently.Occasionally it made sorties out of the garden to cross the road to trees in other gardens but always gravitated back to this one particular garden where the trees were tallest.

Then the oriole seemed to disappear and after a long period of absence everyone left to look for the Rosy Starling which had been re-found on a rooftop

Mark and myself hung on and as we suspected the oriole was still in the sycamores and with only the two of us looking for it eventually showed itself once more and to better effect.

We got our photographs and satisfied we too headed off to look for the starling. Needless to say there was no sign of it on any rooftop but I noticed that there were many Common Starlings congregating in the Community Woodland at the back of the school and walking through the wood came out on the other side to find the Rosy Starling feeding with its cousins in a field full of sheep,The views although distant were adequate.

I called Mark to inform him of my find and he joined me.and so a nice double was achieved in Aith but something much, much better, was to come

to be continued

A Red backed Shrike at Sullom Shetland 1st October 2024

This morning after our customary coffee at The Cornerstone Cafe in Scalloway we set off to see a juvenile Red backed Shrike.

This would entail a drive northwards to Sullom, a small settlement of houses that lies on one side of Sullom Voe with the huge Sullom Voe Oil Terminal. situated relatively distantly, further up at the head of the voe 

It was a bright but very windy morning as we set off and on arriving at Sullom we found only four other birders standing by the road looking for the shrike 

It had been reported from here for a couple of days previously and photographed only yesterday from literally by the roadside where the edge of a plantation met the road.This plantation was quite extensive and like most similar plantations across Shetland was presumably acting as a windbreak, although standing on the road it did not appear very effective today due to the wind's direction.

Of the shrike there was no sign so we split up to walk through the plantation and cover the surrounding area of small gardens and fields. Forty or so minutes passed before the shrike was discovered sheltering in some rosa bushes on the leeward side of the plantation and close to the road

We gathered together to admire it and took photographs  as it hunted bees, wasps and other large insects visiting the rosa bushes. It had been reported as having met with some mishap which manifested itself in the form of a suspected broken left wing and indeed when it moved up from a post into a tree by a series of giant hops you could see the wing hanging down but from experience I knew the wing was not broken but badly sprained.

Dire predictions came from Mark that it was a doomed bird but I pointed out that having rescued and recuperated several birds in such condition in my youth, with time the wing would heal. Time however was not on the bird's side but if the weather was kind (not a given with Shetland's capricious climate) and the apparent plentiful supply of prey remained it might stand a good chance of resuming its southward migration.

It certainly did not appear to inconvenience the shrike which despite the drooping wing was highly mobile, using both wings, damaged and otherwise, to assist it in progressing from ground level to the tops of the plantation trees with little apparent difficulty

The other four birders moved on leaving us alone in the road to  watch the shrike moving about, at one point showing much interest in an alarmed  Yellow browed Warbler which after some anxious hopping around and calling in anxiety near to the shrike left for safer surroundings.

We lost sight of the shrike and after a bit of searching discovered it had descended to the wire fence that ran along the leeward side of the plantation and rosa bushes and was a nice sunny spot well out of the wind.

The fence separated the plantation from a large grass field and I suggested to Mark we could get closer to the shrike and improve on any photographic efforts by climbing the fence which would put us in the field right opposite the shrike as it perched on the fence

In Scotland there is right to roam and in Shetland provided you do not damage fences or leave gates open in areas such as this field it is not a problem to venture into such places.We duly crossed the low wire fence and stood in the wet  field.The shrike for its part showed absolutely no alarm at our presence and we came to realise it was one of those individuals that would tolerate a close approach.

The shrike continued hopping from fence post to fence post and we watched it regularly catching large insects that blundered into the prolific rosa bushes or caught beetles in the grass below.

We shared a pleasant two hours entirely alone with the shrike which remained for the most part in its sheltered corner of the field. Half way through the owners of the field came down from the top of the field checking on the fences and stopped to chat to us, asking about the shrike and telling us they had no problem with us standing in their field which I may say is typical of Shetland and its inhabitants and leaves one with a very pleasant feeling.

We went back a couple of days later to see the shrike and by now it was capable of flying relatively strongly so its prospects were hopefully positive.

A Yellow browed Casualty in Scalloway Shetland 29th September

Our accommodation at Scalloway is a house at the top of a hill that overlooks the town with a garden surrounded by huge sycamores whose leaves still cling stubbornly but lifeless to the trees whilst others that have falllen congregate in drifts of withered brown at the back door, blown there by the wind that eddies around the house

This morning, leaving the back door, a tiny corpse lay in front of me underneath a ground floor window.It was a Yellow browed Warbler, possibly the one we had heard calling from the sycamores a day earlier.

I picked it up, its feathers sodden from a rain shower and left it to dry on a paper towel in my room. It was so poignant looking at its tiny form, hardly bigger than a Goldcrest  and realising what a vast distance it had travelled  and how perilous was its journey only to end prematurely by colliding with a window.

The sight of one of these world travellers flitting through the trees on Shetland always brings a thrill. Often its presence is revealed by its anxiety note, a loud tsweeet call.You look up into a sycamore struggling to detect a movement that is different to the constant flickering of leaves in the wind.You find the bird eventually and in the bins it is revealed as a tiny avian gem of moss green upperparts and yellow stripes above the eye and across its wings.Then it disappears into the leaves and becomes as one with them once more.

This autumn has seen many Yellow browed Warblers arrive in Shetland.For instance on the 2nd of October one hundred and thirty were counted in Shetland and there must have been many more that went unrecorded. It is no longer classed as even scarce but accepted as common by resident Shetland birders.

No one can be sure why part of the population of a species that normally heads southeast from its breeding grounds in Siberia to southern Asia is now migrating northwest, in exactly the opposite direction and expanding its range into western Europe. 

The rise of records in Shetland correlates with those in Britain with around seventy being reported annually fifty years ago, rising to more than eight hundred in 2003, then up to two thousand in 2017 and shows no sign of stopping.Some years are better than others but the rise in numbers is inexorable, the birds seeming to arrive in waves.

An unprecedented five have so far been recorded this autumn in my home county of Oxfordshire too

Reflecting on the Yellow browed Warbler I kept the warbler theme going on a grey morning by heading to the outskirts of Lerwick and Clickimin Loch in particular which is bordered by a popular pathway much used by the public and visiting birders.The sides of the pathway are bordered by mainly birch and other species of small tree and attract many migrants. Who can forget the White's Thrush that resided here for a few days in 2002?

No such mega today though but a Barred Warbler was reported as showing well in the birches.This is a robust, bulky bird with a long tail, more like a small thrush than a warbler and can be very confiding.Invariably they are first year birds dressed in an overall plumage of pale grey with very little variation and are unmistakeable when seen

I soon found the bird near the top of a small birch picking small black aphids from the undersides of the birch's small yellowing leaves.It had none of the finesse of a male Blackcap also feeding in the tree but ponderously moved from twig to twig as it examined the leaves.

Barred Warblers breed in southern Scandinavia east through Russia to Siberia and normally winter in East Africa.They are not uncommon on Shetland at this time of year especially with the northeast winds that have been prevalent  for some days now

I had already seen four this autumn before this confiding bird but they are always nice to see especially when allowing such close views

to be continued

.

 

A Pechora Pipit at Quendale Shetland 28th September 2024

Mark and myself being based in Scalloway had been mainly concentrationg on birding that part of Mainland, the largest island in Shetland, south of Lerwick and today we had an incentive to return there like no other, as a report came in the early morning of a Pechora Pipit being discovered at Quendale Mill.

Quendale Mill is a well known and very popular place to go birding as many a major rarity has been found there and it is covered daily at this time of year from dawn to dusk by various birding groups and independent birders such as us

It is a forty five minute drive from our house in Scalloway to Quendale Mill and we knew when we got there we would be in the company of many other birders keen to see this charismatic ultra rarity from the East

Pechora Pipits are one of those select species that any serious birder who comes to Shetland hopes to see.They breed in northern Siberia, northeast China and southeast Russia and spend their winter in Indonesia and The Phillipines.So this bird at Quendale had come a very long way and in the wrong direction.

They used to be a Fair Isle speciality, a bird of myth and legend that you had to make an extreme journey to go and see on that fabled island lying between Shetland and Orkney.In latter years it has been encountered in other parts of Shetland too. To date 122 have been recorded in Britain and 95 of those are from Shetland which constitutes a remarkable 82% of all records. Very much a bird of the North.

The last one recorded in Shetland, which I went to see, was at Hillswick on Mainland in October 2022 which was frequenting an extensive iris bed and prompted a large twitch resulting in only flight views of the bird and brief views of it perched on a wall.It was not a particularly edifying spectacle with the bird never visible on the ground and consequently being continually flushed.

Would it be the same at Quendale? Probably not as the topography was not so conducive to the bird being flushed.

We arrived at Quendale Mill to find a reasonable crowd but not as many as I had feared and nowhere near the scrum that had been at Hillswick.Everyone was well behaved and stood on the track that runs away from the Mill towards a disused quarry. 

On one side of the track was a fence beyond which lay an adjacent burn, iris beds (known as seggy's in Shetland) and rank vegetation and on the other, similar irises, rough grass and a drystone wall.

As we headed up the track we could see birders looking at presumably the pipit in the irises by the burn but almost immediately the pipit flew up and over the track to disappear into the irises on the other side by the wall.

Well that was quick.At least we have seen it. I remarked 

Obviously we wanted to achieve much better than this but at least some of the inevitable anxiety and pressure that comes with chasing rarities was assuaged.

Mark however was determined to get a decent photograph

We joined the crowd and waited to see what would happen but.the pipit remained hidden for quite some time before flying up out of the irises onto the wall and perched there for a couple of minutes giving spectacular views. 

I have seen three including this one, in Britain and went to see my first one, not in Scotland but in Pembrokeshire in 2007. In appearance they are boldy streaked on their upperparts this impression accentuated by prominent white stripes along the sides of the mantle.The wings have two prominent wing bars and the white underparts are heavily streaked with black on the breast and flanks. 

Having revealed itself to one and all it flew down into the irises and was gone from view. 

Both of us then stood around until it showed itself again on the wall and was as before just as obliging and. this behaviour formed a pattern throughout the day.The pipit disappearing for some time then re-appearing for a brief time on the wall as if to check all was well.

We were both pleased with our photos and as the bird was so showy many were satisfied with the views they had got and departed and as the numbers of birders decreased the pipit became more showy still.

We spent almost the entire day here watching and photographing it.Mark being the keen and very good photographer he is likes to get the ultimate image so we were not going anywhere but that was fine with me.

For some variety I went to a small copse by the start of the track and found a Yellow browed Warbler. Quendale Mill is now a visitor attraction and is situated amongst a working dairy farm, the buildings stark and the roads permanently wet and muddy.I wandered around the back of the barns and found a couple of Barred Warblers in a stand of nettles with a huge flock of House Sparrows and Starlings

Quendale Farm

We went home but Mark never satisfied wanted to go back the next day assuming the pipit was still there.Who was I to argue.

The report of the pipit's continued presence duly arrived in the morning and we set off for Quendale

When we got there we discovered the pipit had transferred to the other side of the track where the burn ran down beside it and iris beds proliferated. As with yesterday it was almost immediately on view and continued to be so for most of the day, threading and weaving its way, with pink legs and long pink toes over and under irises and grass much like a combination of a Lanceolated Warbler and an Olive backed Pipit. I mainly watched it today rather than take a huge number of photos and saw it bathing at least three times in the burn, pulling small worms from the mud as well as catching other invertebrates.It was constantly active and feeding apart from the bathing sessions and when on several occasions it came particularly close I indulged my self with my camera.Well who wouldn't? 

By the end of the day we were down to only four of us diehards but two days with a showy Pechora is what it is all about.I doubt if I will ever get to see a Pechora Pipit so well again.

to be continued