Autumn 2022 Shetland trip - part 2

Sunday 2^nd October

Hornemann’s Artic Redpoll

Sunday dawned sunny but still very blustery. As I packed the car for my days birding my spirits were lifted by four attractive Red-breasted Merganser swimming by in the bay opposite the hotel. My first destination for the day was the small village of Toab on the south of the mainland near Slumburgh where two Artic Redpolls had been reported. 

 

When I arrived I met a fellow birder who told me that they had been showing very well drinking from a puddle by the shop but had now flown to some weedy fields where they were feeding. I located them feeding with a group of other Redpolls at the far end of the field. It was very hard to get a clear view in the vegetation but I eventually got a partial view of one of the Arctics. After an hour or so the flock took off and flew back towards the shop. One of the Arctics perched up nicely posing on a stone wall but, unfortunately, as I raised my camera a car pulled up and flushed the bird. I spent the next hour or so trying to relocate the bird without success. I did find two Wheatears which are nice birds to see on any occasion.

 

Next I drove up to Slumburgh head where a Grey Phalarope had been reported on the sea but the sea was very rough and choppy and the only birds I could locate were a small number of Shags.

 

I had started a slow drive back north when a report of a probable Eastern Yellow Wagtail came through located behind the Co-op shop at Brea in a field. I’ve previously seen several of these Wagtails which have recently been split as a full species from our common Yellow Wagtail, see here. When I arrived I was told that the Wagtail had just flown off so I carried on back to my hotel. As I parked up a report came through that the Wagtail had returned so, as Brea is only a 20 minute drive from my hotel, I went back and got several views of the bird in flight. It was calling loudly with the diagnostic high pitch tweet of its species.

 

Eastern Yellow Wagtail, Norfolk Nov 2019

Monday 3^rd October

 

Monday dawned with, yes you’ve guessed it, heavy showers and strong winds. My destination today was Unst, the northernmost inhabited island on Shetland. This requires two short car ferry crossings, one from the mainland to Yell, the other from Yell to Unst. I was heading for Norwick on the north-eastern coast. On the way I stopped to get some fuel and a coffee in the most northerly shop in the UK, aptly named the Final Checkout.

 

I spent the first hour or so at Norwick looking for an Ortolan Bunting, a bird I have only seen once before in the UK, but could not locate it. Out at sea a distant Long-tailed duck drifted by. On past visits the beach has been home to mixed wader flocks but on this occasion there were just a couple of Ringed Plovers feeding amongst the seaweed.

 

A small group of houses located close to the beach have typically wind swept Shetland gardens that are famous for rare birds. I dipped a Red-breasted Grossbeak here a year ago when the tour I was on delayed going for it by a day. I met birding friends Andy Last and Tom Bedford from Oxford who were trying to tie down a small brown warbler that they had briefly seen the evening before. They thought that it might be a Sykes or Booted Warbler. It was playing very hard to get, either in the back of some garden trees or feeding deep in the vegetation of a weedy field. After a while Roger, also an Oxon birder, arrived and managed to get a few photos which pretty much tied the bird down as a Blyth’s Reed Warbler. It was interesting to compare how elusive this autumn individual was with the very showy hormone driven singing spring birds that I have seen before. There was also at least one Yellow-browed Warbler in the trees.

 

A somewhat more showy Blyth's Reed Warbler taken a few years back in spring

I decided to start a slow drive back and was on Yell when the news broke of a rare Pechora Pipit in the wet iris bed adjacent to my hotel. In fact it was possible to see the bed from my hotel window – cue a mad dash back to Hillswick!

 

The Pechora Pipit is a well-marked Pipit which breeds in the eastern Palearctic tundra in dense vegetation near riverbanks. The Pechora river in this region gives it its name. It is a long distance migrant which winters in Indonesia.

 

I was on the way back when a message came through on the WhatsApp group, “Pechora Pipit organised flush at 16:45”?  When I arrived the flush was in progress and the bird flew from the iris bed to a graveyard perching briefly before it flew back into the iris bed. The flush continued and the bird again flew from the reed bed. At this point a number of birders were heard shouting, “that’s enough” and “leave the bird alone now” but there were still people in the reed bed trying to move the bird. I went back to my hotel somewhat perturbed and not a little uneasy about what had just occurred. 

 

 

The twitch from my hotel window

Tuesday 4^th October

 

I awoke to very strong winds rattling the hotel windows so after breakfast I very sensibly decided to drive up to one of the most exposed spots on Shetland at Eshaness. The attraction here, apart from the amazing views of thunderous seas crashing onto the cliffs, was a flock of 40 or so Snow Buntings. I soon found them a few hundred meters south of the lighthouse feeding on what appeared to be very baren land, I guess there were some seeds in there somewhere. I normally see these attractive Buntings of the east coast in the winter when they have moulted to their duller winter plumage. A number of these birds were still in partial summer plumage and I enjoyed watching and photographing them for an hour or so. Driven by some unknown threat they would occasionally take to the wing, swirl around like leaves in the gale before  thinking better of it and landing again.

Eshaness lighthouse and sea view

Snow Buntings

 

As I walked bank to the car news came through of a Lanceolated Warbler at Western Quarf. This rare vagrant is a Shetland speciality and one that I had very much hoped to connect with on this trip. It is one of the Locustella species of warbler known for their monotonous mechanical insect like reeling. In common with other members of its genus it is a skulking species which is very difficult to see as it creeps through grass and low foliage. It breeds from northeast European Russia  across the Palearctic  to northern Hokkaido in Japan. It is migratory spending the winter in Southeast Asia. 

 

On arrival a line of birders were on the side of the road looking over a fence into a grassy field with cows in it. I looked over the fence and a fellow birder pointed the bird out to me buried and partially obscured in a clump of grass. All well and good and nothing particularly controversial up to this point. Several people then entered the field in an attempt to flush the bird over the road into another field with lower grass. The bird flushed and flew into the ditch by the road. A couple of people then got into the ditch and flushed the bird into the other field. Birders then entered that field and were able to get close to the bird and take pictures. These are the exact facts as I observed them from my position standing in the road. My sense of discomfort at these events grew as I mulled them over and I decided not to enter the field. With the benefit of glorious hindsight I wished I had left the scene as soon as it was clear that the bird was going to be continuously flushed.

 

Someone subsequently posted a video on twitter of the bird being flushed from the ditch accompanied by a jovial caption. This produced a raging fire of indignation and the video was soon deleted. Now as a scientist, I will always try to approach highly controversial issues such as this as logically as possible

 

In this regard there seem to be two highly pertinent questions.

 

Firstly, is it legal?

Secondly, is it ethical.

 

We should be able to answer the first question objectively. As far as I’m aware, and I’m very happy to be corrected, there is no current legislation that outlaws this activity outside of the breeding season.

 

Questions of ethics, however, are always going to be somewhat more subjective and dependent on an individual’s own moral compass. My personal view is strongly no, it is not ethical. It is often quoted that the welfare of the bird comes first and its simply impossible to see how this can be the case in this situation.

 

Somewhat surprisingly, the RSPB bird watching code of conduct does including guidelines for flushing birds as follows:-

 

“Birds should not be flushed more frequently than every two hours nor within two hours of sunrise or sunset, so the bird has chance to feed and rest”

 

This was certainly not the case above.

 

Wednesday 5^th October

 

Today I decided that I really needed to get some decent views of the small influx of Artic Redpolls that were on Shetland.

 

There are two subspecies of Artic Redpoll namely Hornemann’s Artic Redpoll found in Greenland and neighbouring parts of Canada and Coues’ Artic Redpoll which breeds in the Tundra of North America and the Palearctic. They are very hardy little birds and most remain in the far north over winter but a few migrate short distances south, often with Common Redpolls.

 

There had been a number of sightings over the past few days around Hillswick and I was scanning a promising looking field when a report of two just down the road at the coast guard station came through.  As I drove down the road I spied two birders walking up a side road towards a farm. I guessed that these were the guys who had reported the birds and that they must have subsequently flown towards the farm. I caught up with  one of the birders and he pointed the birds out to me just behind the farm in a twiggy bush.

Hornemann’s Artic Redpoll

I know I keep repeating myself here but these Artic Redpolls really are the most attractive birds. These two were of the Hornemann’s race and were quite large plump very pale birds with small beaks, white rumps, black bibs, a red spot on the top of the head and two whitish wing bars on each wing.  The white plump appearance gives them their birders nickname of snowballs.

 

They stayed feeding in the bush for five or ten minutes before flying off rather determinedly out of sight. Back at the car I checked the Shetland WhatsApp birding groups and was excited to find that a rare North American Myrtle Warbler had been found further south on the mainland at a place called Ellister near Bigton. 

 

This was potential the fourth new UK bird of the week for me and I was soon parking up at the recommended spot, a village hall some 20 minutes’ walk from the site. As always in Shetland, the bird was located in a small clump of garden trees. After a nervous hour or so with a few fleeting views, the bird came out onto a branch and gave some better views.

 

The Myrtle Warbler with just 24 UK records to the end of 2020 rates as a mega on the birders rarity scale. It breeds in much of Canada and North-eastern US. It is migratory  wintering in  the south-eastern United States, eastern central America, and the Caribbean. It is closely related to the Audubon’s  and Goldman’s Warblers all three of which were previously considered to be a subspecies of the Yellow-rumped Warbler. In summer plumage the  male has a slate blue back, and yellow crown, rump, and flank patch. It has white tail patches, and the breast is streaked black. The female has a similar pattern, but the back is brown as are the breast streaks. While the Myrtle Warbler is mainly insectivorous it will take Myrtle berries in the winter, hence its common name. In habit it was quite flycatcher like, similar to our common Chiffchaff, making short flights looking for insects before returning to its perch. 

 

There were two possible viewing points of either side of the clump of trees and I decided to base myself on the one with better light with the sun behind me. My birding friend Ian was located at the other vantage point when the Warbler came down onto the ground to feed yielding much better photos. I joined Ian and waited but the bird never really came fully out into the open again. As the afternoon drew on and the light started to fade I left feeling a tad hard done by with my few partially obscured photos.

 

Shetland, however, had another trick up its sleeve, more on this in my next blog.

To be continued.

Footnote – my blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!