The Standlake Birder

  The Purple Heron sits in the well populated category on my UK bird list, seen badly on numerous occasions. All the ones I have seen in the UK have been very skittish, unapproachable, and easily flushed. We had one at Otmoor RSPB for a few weeks back in the summer of 2016 but, despite a number of visits, I only ever had frustratingly brief flight views. So when pictures started to emerge of a seemingly very confiding individual only 40 odd miles from home at Whelford a visit was a no-brainer.   The weather looked fairly favourable for photography yesterday so, after completing a number of domestic chores, I drove the comparatively short distance to Whelford near Fairford in Gloucestershire arriving around mid-day.    The heron had taken up residence at Whelford pool nature reserve and had been favouring a small wet area of recently cut reeds conveniently in front of a small hide only a short walk from the road. Not too surprisingly, the hide was pretty full with standing room only whe

Here is a selection of the best of the rest photos from our 2023 Shetland holiday. Siskin Wheatear Greater Short-toed Lark Turnstone Knot Barred Warbler Brambling Birds of note Verry ✅ White's Thrush ✅ Eastern Sub-alpine Warbler ✅ Yellow Warbler ✅ Siberian Stonechat Snowy Owl Dusky Warbler Great Skua Yellow-browed Warbler Barred Warbler Pied Flycatcher Hawfinch Blyth's Reed Warbler Merlin Siskin Redpoll Red-breasted Flycatcher Whooper Swan Footnote - My blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!  

  If you are thinking about an autumn birding holiday in Shetland and have never been before, there is one thing you need to know, you will loose at least one day to the weather. Its not so much the rain, which you should expect to see a lot of, but the wind which can be absolutely brutal with speeds in excess of 50 mph commonplace. No right-minded bird will show itself to you in such conditions, preferring to shelter deep in the sparse vegetation.   Winds gusting to 65 mph were forecast for the last two days of our holiday leaving us thinking they would probably be a right off. Our ferry on the Wednesday night was being reported as “high probability of cancellation”  on Monday and indeed was cancelled on the Tuesday. In such circumstances the ferry company try and get you on the next available ferry. This usually means as a walk on passenger with your car going separately on the freight ferry. To make matters worse there were no cabins available and the best we could do was two sleepi

      At 18:37 on Wednesday 4 th  October a message appeared on the Shetland Rare Bird News WhatsApp group that sent my heart racing – “White’s thrush Gorie plantation Bressay seen x3 in flight this evening”. If I had to name one bird I really wanted to see on this trip the White’s Thrush was it, doubly so as I had missed one that turned up a couple of days after I had left Shetland last year. Its aways a bit of a gamble deciding when to go to Shetland in the Autumn but generally the rarity peak is from mid-September to mid-October. For the past two visits I have picked the first 10 days of October. Last year I did particularly well adding Swainson’s Thrush, Least Bittern, Pechora Pipit, Myrtle Warbler and Lanceolated Warbler to my Uk life list so it would be childish to complain about missing the White’s Thrush. Buoyed by this successes I picked similar dates to visit this year.   On hearing the news of the White’s Thrush all other plans for Thursday morning were quickly binned and, h

      The first Tuesday of our Shetland sojourn was mainly spent climbing over steep rough terrain  to see a stunning Snowy Owl. Views were limited to distant scope ones to avoid disturbing the bird so no pics but a wonderful avian experience and only my second UK Snowy Owl.   On Wednesday we visited Lunna to see a Siberian Stonechat. This is one of the two recognised eastern species that have been recorded in the UK in addition to our common Stonechat. I have previously seen all three of these Stonechats in the UK, see here .   The Siberian Stonechat breeds in the East Palearctic including  easternmost Europe and winters in central Africa  In general the eastern species are paler than our Stonechat with a diagnostic jet black panel on the underwing and both have more white on the tail. The Siberian and Amur are hard to tell apart visibly differing in the amount and pattering of the white on the tail. DNA analysis is usually required to absolutely assign the Stonechat to Siberian or Am

  Having had good views of the Veery, see here , we drove to Wester Quaff to see a rare Eastern Sub-alpine Warbler. The Sub-alpine Warbler complex is split into 3 separate species. The most commonly occurring UK vagrant is the Western Sub-alpine which breeds in Iberia, southern France, and northern Morocco. Next in terms of scarcity comes the Eastern Sub-alpine which breeds in Italy east to the coastal areas of the Adriatic. Finally the scarcest of the three, afforded a 3 start mega status in the Colins bird bible, is the Moltoni’s Warbler which breeds on mainland Italy, Corsica, and Sardinia. All three winter in Western Africa. Somewhat strangely, the only one of the three I have previously seen is  Moltoni’s so the Eastern would be a UK life tick for me.   The bird was in  typical Shetland warbler habitat, a small garden of mainly stunted sycamores. These trees had not yet shed their leaves making warbler observations very problematic.  I would say they are not intrinsically particul

  Jeremy and I left Worcestershire on Sunday 1 st  October for our much anticipated 12 day birding trip to Shetland. An uneventful 450 mile drive to Aberdeen and a smooth overnight ferry crossing had us docking in Lerwick early on Monday morning. A very rare American thrush called a Veery had been found on the mainland a few days previously and, if still present,  was our first planned destination.   A positive report soon came in so we made our way to its location at Lunna Kirk, a rather desolate area on the north of the mainland. I was familiar with this site as I had visited to see a Barred Warbler last year, see here . Kirk is a Scottish and old English name for a church and indeed there is a somewhat decrepit  church and graveyard on the cliff. On the opposite side of the road an old stone wall provides partial protection for a stunted line of sycamores. The sycamore is a common garden tree in Shetland, presumably being one of the few trees that can tolerate the harsh environment.