Shetland autumn 2024 part one, two lifers and loads of scarce birds

   

Little Bunting

My ferry arrived in Shetland bright and early on the morning of Thursday 3^rd October. I disembarked and drove to my favourite coffee house in Lerwick to check the latest bird news and plan my day. A somewhat restless night on the ferry and the aftereffects of Covid had left me still feeling really drained so I planned a gentle relaxing day with some nice drift vagrants. Of course Shetland had other plans for me – read on intrepid reader (that’s you Nick!) read on!

 

There is a  (tongue very much in cheek) problem with taking an autumn birding holiday in Shetland, it destroys your motivation for birding on returning to a land locked midlands county. As a case in point, Yellow-browed warblers are attractive little so and so’s and would be definitely worth jumping in a car for back home. I don’t know the exact number that were in Shetland this autumn but, at times, it seemed as though there was one in every single bush or tree. So, spoilt for choice I decided to drive the short distance to Aith to hopefully see and photograph two scarce drift migrants, a Rose Coloured Starling and a Golden Oriel.

 

On arrival the Starling was immediately obvious, looking very windswept and somewhat sorry for itself sitting on the roof of a house. These attractive birds breed in the steppes, semi-deserts and deserts of Central Asia and Southeast Europe and winter in India and tropical Asia. The adult is highly distinctive, with its pink body, pale orange legs and bill, glossy black head, wings, and tail. This bird, I have to say, looked a little bit miffed to me, I think it was thinking something along the lines of “how on earth did I end up on this roof in Shetland when my ticket definitely had India on it?”

Rose Coloured Starling

I moved the short distance into the centre of Aith where the Golden Oriel was being reported. Trees and bushes in Shetland are few and far between and often their growth has been very stunted by the almost continual battering they get from the elements. The majority of trees and bushes are hence in peoples gardens with very few naturally occurring in the barren but beautiful countryside. Sycamores are a common garden choice but they seldom get to the height of trees further south and often more resemble bushes. The Golden Oriel was frequenting some of these Sycamore bushes in a residential garden and I settled down with a small number of other birders to enjoy this colourful bird. It is a summer migrant to Europe spending the winter season in central and southern Africa. Their Uk story is a sadly familiar one. The Golden Oriole was a scarce but regular breeding species in poplar plantations in East Anglia during the 1980s and 1990s but breeding numbers at the former core population at Lakenheath collapsed from 27 pairs in 1987 and they no longer breed in the UK.

 

As the name suggests, they are visually stunning birds. The male is striking in the typical oriole black and yellow plumage, but the female is a drabber green bird. Orioles are by nature quite shy, and even the male can be  remarkably difficult to see in the dappled yellow and green leaves of the canopy. In brown autumnal leaves of the stunted Sycamores it was somewhat easier and the bird, with considerable patience, would occasionally show quite well.

  

Golden Oriel

In early afternoon an event that I have witnessed several times before in Shetland occurred, a very rare bird was found causing most of the birders on the island to instantly migrate in wildebeest fashion to its location. On this occasion the bird in question was an Eastern Crowned Warbler, a bird that had never been recorded in Scotland before.  There are just 4 UK records accepted by the BOU up to the end of 2022 and I’ve never seen one.

 

The Eastern Crowned Warbler breeds from eastern Siberia right across to the Korean peninsula and Japan. It winters it eastern India and Bangladesh. Hence the Shetland bird is very lost! It was first recorded in the UK in County Durham in 2009. 

 

The bird was located in some low vegetation and scrub next to a residential property and proved to be quite elusive and hard to see well. An additional issue was that a number of Yellow Browed Warblers were present in the same area and were easily confused with the mega rarity if only glimpsed briefly. It was a big twitch by Shetland standards, I guess in the region of two to three hundred birders were there at the peak. Over the course of several hours I managed to get several clear views of this distinctive little bird moving through the back of the vegetation but didn’t get any photos.

 

Friday was a much more laid back day catching up with Yellow browed Warblers, Red breasted Flycatchers and other drift vagrants.

 

Saturday involved another mad dash to Unst, the most northerly Shetland isle, where a Paddyfield warbler was found in the morning. This again would constitute a UK tick for me. Getting there entails driving up to Toft on the mainland and catching a ferry over to Yell. There is then a phenomena called the Yell dash where all birders on the Ferry race across the island to get the smaller Ferry to Unst and then onwards to Norwick, almost as far north as you can go on land in the UK.

 

A very rare Lanceolated warbler, a bird I have only seen once before again on Shetland, was also at Norwick and I got a very brief view of it in a ditch before staking out a small crop field where other birders were looking for the Paddyfield Warbler. There was a mixed crop of potatoes and Kale and birders with thermal imagers were able to see the warbler sulking about on the ground in the Kale. To cut a long story short, over the course of two hours I again managed two brief views as it flew before dropping back under cover. You can see a theme developing here!

 

I spent the rest of my time at Norwick trying for better views and perhaps some photos of the Lanceolated warbler. Yet again, I got some good views but no photographs. At one point I was laying on the ground in a small fir plantation when the Lancy walked right in front of me perhaps no more than one meter way from my camera – much too close to focus. Oh well I certainly saw it very well.

 

On Sunday with no new megas reported, I decided I better try and get some photographs and spent most of the day in Lerwick photographing a Barred Warbler and a Little Bunting.

 

The Barred Warbler breeds across temperate regions of central and eastern Europe and western and central Asia. It is strongly migratory wintering in eastern Africa. It is a surprisingly large grey and white warbler with the adult birds, particularly the male, being heavy barred beneath.  In the UK they are comparatively rare in the spring but around 100 birds/per year, mainly first winter birds, are found here in the autumn.. The Lerwick bird was located in some bushes and stunted trees next to Loch Clickimin and gave excellent views and photographic opportunities over the course of a couple of hours. It was very confiding and not at all disturbed by Sunday walkers enjoying the welcome autumnal sunshine.

   

Barred Warbler

I then moved on to the Burn of Sound to see what was reported to be a very confiding Little Bunting. This is a bird that I have seen quite  a few times on the mainland but have never managed to get a decent photo. Other birders present told me that the bird was regularly coming to a small Sycamore where it was feeding on aphids. Sure enough after 20 or so minutes the bird appeared and gave me the best ever views I have had of this little brown gem.

  

Little Bunting

The little bunting breeds across the taiga  of the far north-east of Europe  across to the Russian Far East.  It is migratory  wintering in the subtropics in northern India,  southern China and the northern parts of south-east Asia. It is a small bunting with white underparts and dark streaking on the breast and sides. With its chestnut face and white malar stripe, it resembles a small female Reed Bunting  but has black crown stripes, a white eye-ring, and a fine dark border to the rear of its chestnut cheeks.

 

Shetland had by no means finished dishing up very rare autumn delights and Monday turned out to be an incredible red letter day for me, I even got some photos! …..

 

To be continued

 

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