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| Red-backed Shrike |
On Thursday morning, after the traditional hearty breakfast, we set off towards Loch Spiggie where a putative Eastern Yellow Wagtail had been found at the adjacent Noss farm. The Eastern Yellow Wagtail, as the name suggests, breeds in eastern Siberia and Alaska and winters in Asia and Australia.
The phylogeny of the Yellow Wagtail group is complex and, quite honestly, extremely confusing, literally dozens of sub species have been described at one time or another. In the past Western and Eastern Yellow Wagtails have been lumped together as one species but they have been recently split into two distinctive species. I would, however, not be at all surprised though if they are reunited at some future point! The Eastern Yellow Wagtail has a slender and long-tailed appearance and, in general, a bright yellow breast, paler throat and a greyish-olive back. The tail is black with white outer feathers and it often pumps it up and down while walking on the ground. The colouration, as befits the confusion noted above, is, however, extremely variable. It has a diagnostic high-pitched jeet like call. Many of the vagrants to the UK are juveniles or first winter birds as was the Noss Farm bird. First winter Eastern Yellow Wagtails tend to be grey and white birds lacking the yellow on the undertail-coverts displayed by the Western species. A very long hind claw is also indicative of Eastern Yellow Wagtail. To absolutely tie an Eastern Yellow Wagtail down the diagnostic call needs to be recorded and a DNA sample obtained from poo. Without this they are described as putative. An excellent paper of the complexities of the Yellow Wagtail group can be found here.
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| Putative Eastern Yellow Wagtail |
Our bird was soon located within a small flock of Pied Wagtails by the farm and indeed showed the grey and white type of appearance described above. It was in long grass most of the time making viewing of the hind claw impossible. As far as I’m aware, the diagnostic call was heard but no poo was obtained so I suspect this bird will remain listed as putative.
I do, however, have a confirmed bird on my list from Norfolk a couple of years ago.
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| Eastern Yellow Wagtail, Norfolk 2019 |
While at Noss farm a few Pink-footed Geese flew overhead providing some flight shot opportunities.
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| Pink-footed Goose |
Next we were back to Aith where a first winter Woodchat Shrike had been reported in the traditional Shetland garden location sitting on the owners washing line. The bird was just over the road opposite the Rose-breasted Starling garden when we arrived sitting back in a garden tree. It flew into the field, perched on a barbed wire fence and started hunting invertebrates on the ground in the characteristic Shrike manner. The adult male is a striking bird with black and white upper parts, a chestnut crown, and pure white underparts. The Woodchat Shrike breeds in southern Europe, the middle east and northwest Africa and migrates to tropical Africa for the winter months. Many of the handful of vagrants that we see yearly in the UK are first winter birds as was the Aith individual. Its Latin name is the rather impressive Lanius senator, Lanius in Latin meaning butcher referring to the shrikes habit of storing its prey in a larder impaled on thorns. We watched it hunting in this manner for a while before it grabbed something much larger and flew back to its original tree. We thought it had a vole but we subsequently discovered these are not present on Shetland so perhaps it was a mouse.
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| Woodchat Shrike |
Now at this point I should really fill you in on my embarrassing key saga which became the talk of the group in the latter part of our week together. On Thursday morning I realised that I had not seen the key for the curtsey car now parked at Aberdeen airport since we had arrived in Shetland. A through search on my hotel room, my luggage and our minibus on Thursday morning failed to located it so I had to call the garage way down south in Pershore to see if they could somehow get a spare key to me either on Shetland or Aberdeen airport when we arrived on Saturday morning. Many theories were put forward as to the whereabouts of the missing key including still in the unlocked car at the airport. More on this embarrassing mishap later!
A stop off at the King Elder Loch yielded brief distant scope views of it in the Common Eider flock bobbing up and down in very choppy water and it was duly added to our weeks list. We also managed to see a Great Northern Diver, somewhat surprisingly the only diver I was to see during the week.
Friday dawned overcast but dry and we set off to bird the two quarries at Sumburg. There were good numbers of Blackbirds in the adjacent fields so we scanned in the hope of finding a Ring Ouzel but without success. The quarries held no migrants but were home to a flock of gregarious Fulmars which breed there in the spring and then roost and hang around there for the rest of the year.
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| Fulmar |
I must say that I thought looking for migrants in the quarries was a bit of a waste of time as they looked very unpromising. I was, however, proved wrong when a Yellow-browed Warbler was found there later that morning.
We next set off to East Burra where a first winter Red-Backed Shrike had been reported. We located the Shrike pretty much immediately. It was a very showy individual indeed providing some of the best photographic opportunities of the week. While lacking the razmataz of the spectacularly attired male adult, it nonetheless was a very attractive bird in its own right with its chestnut brown steaked crown and back offsetting its white chest.
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| Red-backed Shrike enjoying the Shetland weather! |
The tale of the Red-backed Shrike in the UK is familiar and sad one. It used to be a common migratory visitor to Great Britain but numbers declined sharply during the 20th century. In the early part of this century there were a very small number of successful breeding attempts leading to some optimism that the Shrike may recolonised the UK assisted by a warming climate. Since then, however, breeding has been confirmed on only two occasions, both in Shetland , in 2015 and 2020.
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| Adult male Red-backed Shrike taken a few years ago |
Later on we scoped two very distant Slavonian Grebes on a Loch and tried to see a Barbed Warbler as the weather deteriorated and the rain set in. One of our group saw it fly across a garden into a hedge but the decision was made to quickly move on out of the rain. Jeremy and I were a little perplexed by this as we would have definitely stayed longer to try and locate it.
During the day I had been liaising with the garage back in Worcestershire with regard to getting a spare key to me. One of the workshop employees, in return for a cash consideration, had offered to drive up and meet us at the airport, an offer which we gladly accepted!
That evening, our last on Shetland, we met in the bar and completed our weeks bird and mammal list. We also had to say our favourite moments and birds. To a man our favourite moment was the guide from another group giving instructions on how to locate a Olive-backed Pipit to one of this group – “it’s on the spade you tw**T!.
On Saturday morning we loaded the minibus and made the 5 minute trip to the airport for an uneventful 40 minute flight back to Aberdeen. I walked over to the car park half expecting, if I had left it unlocked with the key in it, for the curtsey car to have gone. Fortunately it was still there! Jeremy and I had a two hour wait for the driver to arrive with the spare key which we passed with coffee and idle chit chat. We then did the short drive north of Aberdeen to the RSPB reserve at Strathbeg Loch to twitch a Greater Yellowlegs, a lifer for both of us.
With just 34 national records on the BBRC database to the end of 2019 the Greater Yellowlegs, a large American shore bird, is a proper rare bird. They breed in bogs and marshes in the boreal forest region of Canada and Alaska and then migrate to the Atlantic and Pacific of the USA, the Caribbean and south to South America for the winter.
The bird was viewable from the well positioned visitors centre feeding out on the edges of the loch. A combination of distance and intermittent misty rain rendered all but record shots impossible but we had good scope views. There was also a Lesser Yellowlegs, itself a rare American vagrant to the UK, present providing a unique opportunity to view and compare the two birds together in the UK. The Greater Yellowlegs was, not surprisingly, significantly larger than its lesser cousin. Jeremy made the very apt comment that the Greater looked like a Greenshank with yellow legs while the lesser was more Redshank size.
The journey home was long but uneventful and we arrived back at Pirton at 10:30 pm, said our goodbyes and Jeremy departed for his further 90 minute drive home.
In summary then …..
There were numerous advantages of going on an organised trip with Heather Lea.
- An expert guide in Dave who had birded Shetland many times and knew all the good spots
- Accommodation and food all sorted for us
- Friendship and camaraderie with the rest of the group
- No driving or organising of ferries
But there was, however, one big disadvantage..
- We were not in control of where we went when resulting in us dipping the one big Mega that was present during the week
So would I go to Shetland again?
Yes definitely!
Would I go on an organised trip again?
Probably not as I feel we have gained enough knowledge to go it alone and go immediately for any megas present without limitation.
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