A Red breasted Flycatcher at Grutness 20th September 2024

We hit the ground running on our arrival in a typically grey Lerwick morning.There is always a thrill that courses through you at the realisation that anything can turn up birdwise here although it looks so bleak.The promise of rarities and of birds I  would never see in Oxfordshire is a potent mixture of anticipation and excitement.What greater incentive to get out there and start looking.

We headed further south towards virtually the end of the main island, Mainland, to a very well known  birding location, a garden  that you can overlook from the road at a place called Grutness which is near to Sumburgh Head, the southernmost tip of Shetland.

Looking over the garden wall, a line of syscamores hunker along the far wall, their limbs twisted and contorted, the trees stunted by the strong winds that blow in off the sea and the spent leaves curled like burnt paper until they too can resist the wind's attentions for no longer. These trees have provided sanctuary for many rare and not so rare migrants over the years and most birders stop here to check the trees as the birds can change almost daily in the right conditions.

This morning, via the various birding WhatsApp groups one joins on arriving on Shetland we learnt  that a Red Breasted Flycatcher had been seen in the sycamores but was noted as being very elusive. There was also a Lesser Whitethroat, a Willow Warbler and a couple each of Common Chiffchaff and Goldcrest keeping it company.

These tiny, sprite like will o' the wisp birds are a scarce but regular vagrant to Shetland and there is never a year when they are not found.They are very small and move incredibly fast, rarely are they still for more than a second or two, as they flick and whizz through the boughs and twigs  to catch the tiny insects they feed on.

When you see one up close, in a rare moment of inactivity it is impossible not to be charmed by their endearing persona. Robin like but without the truculence is how I would describe them. Most are young birds in a dull plumage of pale buff underparts and brown upperparts with a black tail that shows white flashes when they fly.

I caught a flash of white today as it dived into the shelter of a sycamore. then there it was again no more than a blur of buff as it shot into another tree.Would it ever settle?

A birder stood next to me said

There it is on that branch, right in the open

I could not find it

A familiar situation but then there it was again

It's back  he said. Same branch

I looked and found it 

Hurrah!

I carried on and discovered it had favoured perches that it invariably returned to.Sheltered branches that were low to the ground, the wind unable to be forceful due to the wall. For long periods it disappeared, so small amongst the wind flickering leaves it was at times impossible to make it out. Its plumage the shade of the dead leaves also an aid in keeping its presence secret, only for it to reveal itself when it flew out after an insect.

I embarked on a rollercoaster of frustration and triumph as I pitted myself against this most difficult and elusive of subjects to watch and photograph

We decided to come back on another day to try and see it better but when we did now found it had been joined by a Spotted Flycatcher, the larger bird not unnaturally in the ascendancy and causing the smaller bird to absent itself. However when the flycatchers were at opposite ends of the line of trees it worked well enough.

The Spotted Flycatcher followed a similar feeding pattern to the Red breasted Flycatcher, hunting insects low down where the wind was less fierce, sitting in the lee of a bough for shelter before flying out to snatch a passing insect. Both birds would occasionally settle in the grass to seize something  not what you would expect to see in their normal habitat but these are vagrants well outside their comfort zone and clinging onto an existence that has become even more precarious.

I often wonder if these birds do indeed succumb or do they re-orientate successfully and make it to their true winter homes. Many young birds die in the first months of life and maybe these are part of that unfortunate but entirely natural statistic.

In a flight of whimsy I look at them as my mind recalls our overnight journey to Lerwick and looking out of our cabin window in the middle of a sleepless night at the passing white crests of the stormy sea and I wonder at these  scraps of life making their perilous journeys across the vastness of sea in the dark, as they must.

to be continued

Steppe Grey Shrike at Dunbar 19th September 2024

Myself and my twitching pal Mark (R) go to Shetland every year in the autumn on a quest for rare and unusual birds.Thus it came about that I headed north from Oxfordshire to Mark's home in North Yorkshire to spend the night there before we set off for Aberdeen, the next day, to catch the overnight ferry to Lerwick in Shetland.

Good fortune favoured us as a very confiding Steppe Grey Shrike had chosen to take up temporary residence on the manicured greens of Winterfield Golf Course and the surrounding Recreational Park in the pleasant East Lothian coastal town of Dunbar and since its discovery on the 10th of September was entertaining birders, photographers and public alike with its exotic presence

Steppe Grey Shrikes are a rare visitor to British shores only 28 having been recorded before this one.They are native to central Asia, parts of northern China. Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.They migrate south in winter but occasionally one goes badly off course and ends up in an unlikely destination such as Dunbar, much to the delight of us birders.They were once considered a separate species to the very similar Great Grey Shrike that is a regular winter visitor in small numbers to Britain but ultimately were reclassified as a subspecies of their more well known cousin. The Steppe Grey Shrike's longer wings and shorter tail with more white showing on the primaries are subtle differences and now considered not enough to give them full species status.

Personally it makes no odds to me as any Great or Steppe Grey Shrike is a delight to see whatever its taxonomic status

This individual having been present for a number of days prior to our departure was a cause for some mild anxiety as we counted the days until we would be passing Dunbar on our way to Aberdeen, hoping the shrike would remain long enough to coincide with our journey north. Fortunately it did.  

On a gentle autumnal day of sunshine we arrived in Dunbar at around noon and parked in a small car park that doubled up as a place for those seeking either recreation or a round of golf on immaculately mown golf greens right by the sea. One could almost call it idyllic with the Bass Rock looming in the middle distance and the North Sea for once pleasantly blue rather than its more accustomed grey..

The shrike had already been reported as still around today so we were relaxed in the knowledge it was  present but we still had to locate it on the golf greens and by employing the well known maxim of 'find  the birders' we soon had a good idea where it was.

Waiting for four golfers to tee off we then walked to almost  the seaward edge of the golf course and joined a dozen or so birders looking at the shrike, perched and posing jauntily on a drystone wall that marked the boundary of the golf course from the coast's edge. It was as easy as that

The bird itself was fearless of human beings and used the wall to sit safe and secure before dropping down almost at our feet to hunt for invertebrates in the rank grass and lawn cuttings discarded under the wall. 

A mix of grey, black and white feathering is always an attractive combination on a bird and on this shrike it certainly did not disappoint. Shrikes also invariably ooze chutzpah and again this individual possessed it in abundance. Perched on the wall it stood proud, bulky of body, its large head rotating as it looked around for suitable prey. Very much the master of its situation

We clustered around, like acolytes, taking its image from all points but in the end I grew tired as every image I took was so good due to its willingness to tolerate our close presence. Instead I just watched it on its wall, its presence a freak of nature and circumstance, a one off that is unlikely to be repeated here as really it should be enjoying life thousands of miles to the east.

It seemed to be seeking any medium to large invertebrate to satisfy its hunger, Bees,wasps, beetles and even large flies fed its appetite, the bird often pursuing its victim at ground level through the grass where it often tarried for long periods.Something I am not used to seeing shrikes do.

Darren Woodhead, an exceptional bird artist, some of whose paintings adorn my wall, was drawing and painting the bird from life. I always marvel at the skill and sheer brilliance that such people possess to be able to replicate on paper, with apparently little effort, their subject of choice. We chatted and exchanged news and gossip but time was wearing on and we had another four hours to go to Aberdeen and the Northlink ferry that would take us onwards for our three week stay on Shetland

The shrike meanwhile had flown to a more distant golf green and was pursuing bees and wasps across the short cropped grass.It was the appropriate time to say farewell.

So onwards to the Granite City and with little delay we were on the huge Northlink ferry at just before 5pm.The sun had followed us north and the Aberdeen skyline was looking rather splendid as the huge ship slowly negotiated its way out past the piers and the oil support vessels moored alongside.

Beyond the outer harbour walls the wind was strong and from the northwest as I gazed in an almost rhapsodic trance across the mighty ocean that stretched away to the horizon. Gannets, mainly brown juveniles with the occasional dazzling white adult cruised over the waves with little apparent effort, heading to destinations known only to them, My interlude of reflection was interrupted as a juvenile Arctic Skua pursued a Kittiwake, forcing the terrified bird to disgorge the contents of its stomach which the skua caught on the wing and swallowed.

There was however more excitement to come as we were asked to descend from the upper deck to the lower aft deck to do our sightseeing. On enquiring why such an unusual request we were told the Coastguard  helicopter was at this moment flying out to practice life saving airborne manoeuvres from off the stern of the ship.

Soon enough a red and white helicopter arrived from the sky and hovered like some giant mechanical and very noisy dragonfly at various heights above us..The clatter of the rotor blades made conversation nigh on impossible and we watched as a man was slowly winched down from the helicopter to swing in the capricious air currents, a human pendulum, first above the ship's stern and then over the  sea. They remained practicing for forty or so minutes, causing much exitement and one has to say admiration.

Eventually with a wave from one of the crew at the open door they swung away back towards the receding land and we headed further out into the North Sea and towards a distant Shetland.

to be continued