At 18:37 on Wednesday 4th 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, having picked up Ian from his lodgings on route, we headed towards Bressay, a large Island off the east mainland coast via a short ferry crossing. Bressay is a sparsely populated island, population just 368, featuring the usual Shetland landscape, rolling barren peat hills with the occasional house and small walled garden. The many abandon settlements, a common site across rural Shetland, reflect the changing times away from the hard crofters existence of yesteryear. The track leading to Gorie was off a single track road with passing places and we parked our car with perhaps 20 other cars at the road end of the track. Up the track in the distance we could see the tops of the plantation trees just poking above the horizon. The walk up the well-made track, initially by the picturesque loch of Brough, took some 30 minutes. On the way we met two birders coming back and I immediately recognised one as oxon birder Mick Cunningham’s brother. After the normal exchange of Yorkshire pleasantries , “ so you are the good looking one of the two then!”, we learned that the White’s had given several flight views but otherwise was following the book description of a shy and elusive bird.
The track runs to a bothy crofters cottage now run as a self-catering holiday let adjacent to a small loch. The finder of the White’s Thrush had rented out the croft, many thanks to him for putting the news out so quickly!
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| Aerial view of the small plantation and bothy adjacent to the loch |
We joined the other birders watching the small plantation with increasing anticipation and after a nervous 30 minute wait the Thrush made a short flight across the plantation. We made our way to the far side of the plantation where some of the birders were trying to view the Thrush through a gap in the dense foliage. This was the cue for the bird to fly from the other side of the plantation to the garden of the bothy! We were assured by the finder that it would soon fly back and sure enough some 10 minutes later it swooped low along the ground back to the plantation. The impression it gave was most un-thrush like, perhaps being more akin in flight to a Merlin. It appeared all brown on the top, with none of the guidebook white and brown chest speckling visible, and glided falcon like with barely a flap of its wing back into the dense foliage of the plantation.
The number of BOU records of this mega rarity, 70 since 1950, hides the fact that it is almost exclusively a Scottish Island speciality with the vast majority of these being one day wonders. It breeds in the Siberian taiga and migrates to southeast Asia for the winter. It is a large bird being some 30cm in length, c.f. our Song Thrush at 20 cm. It is a handsome bird with a heavy bill and black scaly marking on its entire upperparts. The black scaly markings on white on its chest are reminiscent of our Mistle Thrush.
Being the first full day of its residence, most of the visiting birders on Shetland were present and the general hullabaloo and commotion with people talking far too loudly and manically rushing around certainly contributed to the birds elusiveness. I find this type of birding frustrating and somewhat unenjoyable, I much prefer it when a much smaller number of well-behaved birders are present but, heigh-ho, everyone had as much right to be there as we did!
We moved back to the other side of the plantation where we had a few tantalising glimpses on the ground but nothing more than a quickly moving dark silhouette. After a couple of hours we made our way back to the ferry while Ian stayed longer to try and get some photos. We left with mixed feelings, we had seen and could certainly tick the bird but could not help feeling a little disappointment at our all too brief and tantalising views.
This feeling of disappointment grew as we saw better and better pictures posted on social media as the week progressed so we decided to make a second visit on Saturday. This time there were fewer birders on site and we set ourselves up at the back of the plantation in the corner. For the first frustrating 2 hours there were still enough birders rustling crisp bags, talking much too loudly, and waving their hands around saying “there it is”, the net result being that this very skittish bird would appear for a few tantalising seconds and then disappear again. Later in the afternoon with only 4 of us present we had some exceptionally good views of the bird. It even ventured out into the open to feed on some fallen orange berries on the ground.
We left feeling very upbeat that we had really cracked this lovely bird on our second visit!
With three new UK life ticks, the holiday had already exceeded my expectations, but, with one more trick up its sleeve, Shetland had not quite finished with us yet!
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