31 Oct 13 - A Rum Do

Waking up in Yorkshire, I was still uncertain whether to head South to the Hermit Thrush or North for the Mourning Dove. Early negative news from Cornwall confirmed I should be heading North. The Hermit Thrush news finally went positive by the time I was passing Scotch Corner, but I was going to struggle to get back to Cornwall by that time, especially with foul Cornish weather predicted for later that day. It was a pleasant drive to Fort William as the next boat to Rum wasn't till the following morning.

Travelling Oban to Fort William: The weather wasn't brilliant at times, with short, sharp showers

After a night in Fort William, it was an hour's drive to Mallaig for the ferry. The ferry was scheduled for a stop at Rum, then Canna & back to Rum again 2.5 hours later, before finally returning to Mallaig. However, with the weather forecast of Force 6+ winds, the sailing was disrupted and was only making a single visit to Rum, before returning to Mallaig. After quickly throwing a few extra bits in the rucksack I was prepared for a stay on the island. There was only 1 birder, Ewan Urqhart,(black audi birding blog) also waiting for the ferry & he was booked in the island's hostel. With only 4 other locals on the boat, then felt I was safe with turning up unannounced for the hostel. Not surprisingly, we had the hostel to ourselves.

 Mallaig: A helpful local pointed out the way to go

Grey Seal: Note, the long roman nose

Grey Seal: Also the more parallel nostrils

Shag

Male Eider

Gannet

I was glad to get ashore on Rum after a rough crossing. The island of Rum is owned by Scottish Natural Heritage and is mainly a National Nature Reserve. However, in 2009/2010, the Kinloch village was transferred to the Isle of Rum Community Trust which houses the 44 residents on the island.

Rum: A mountainous island & home to over 60,000 Manx Shearwaters

Kinloch Village, Rum: Taken just after one of many wet squalls we encountered. Rock Cottage is the most right hand white cottage

Kinloch Castle, Rum: This Edwardian shooting lodge featured in the 2003 Restoration series with Griff Rhys Jones, but failed to win the cash needed to restore it

Jetty, Rum

 

Kinloch Hostel, Rum: This was a warm & comfortable hostel with self catering facilities & friendly staff

Enough about the cultural side for now, once the bags were dropped at the hostel it was quickly onto the Mourning Dove location at Rock Cottage.

It's always good to know where to go

The Mourning Dove wasn't on view when we arrived, but as there were only 2 of us we were allowed to stand in the garden. After an hour or so, it dropped in briefly onto the grass, before quickly flying up into the conifers again. Fortunately, it returned after 30 minutes or so, & gave some nice prolonged views while it was feeding under the conifers with the Chaffinches.

Mourning Dove: Smaller than a Collared Dove with a longer tail & obvious white flashes to the sides of the tail

Mourning Dove: Note, the dark spots in the wing

Mourning Dove: Note, the pale sides to the breast

Brambling: Showing its orangey breast (second from right)

Brambling: Showing its distinctive white rump

The Mourning Dove was a shy, wary bird and was generally only being seen first thing in the morning and late afternoon close to dusk, so we were lucky to get good views on the ground in early afternoon. My second tick in 3 days which took me to 515 for the British & Irish List (BOU/IRBC birds). Every now & then it was spooked when the Chaffinch flock were spooked by the local Sparrowhawk. Easier to see were the resident Hooded Crows.

Hooded Crow

After the Mourning Dove disappeared, we decided to explore a bit more around Kinloch bay for the rest of the afternoon.

Greylag Goose: More approachable that the Mourning Dove, but they still walked away slowly

Ewan: On the Old Jetty 

 

The hub of Kinloch village: At last the weather has improved

29 Oct 13 - Unsted

Any of the family reading this post will assume this post refers to my Mother's side of the family, the Unsted family, whereas, the birders will realise it's a reference to my recent visit to Unst, the most Northerly of the Shetland isles.

For the last week or so, a Cape May Warbler has been seen in the gardens in the small village of Baltasound, Unst. This is only the second British & European record and with the first bird only being seen for a single day in 1977, it was effectively a British tick for everybody. I was considering driving to Aberdeen & taking the overnight ferry or taking a flight from Aberdeen, but both options were going to result in the bird having to stay for a further 2 days from the time I left the house. Then I saw a pager message for a charter flight from Yorkshire with the added bonus of not taking off until we knew the bird had been seen that day. This fitted in well with my general approach of not going for a bird until I know it's been seen that day. Whilst not a cheap option, it didn't work out any more expensive than the plane from Aberdeen & cheaper than flying from English airfields.

I signed up for the flight & tried to forget about the cost. Arriving at the small flying club airport at dawn the following morning, the only person there was Franko. He was quickly on the phone to birders on Unst asking them to get out early to look for the bird & to let us know the news. Meanwhile the other passengers, Simon Slade, Alan Whitehead (duffbirder blog) & Gorden Ellis, had arrived. By the time Dave the pilot had arrived and had the plane ready to go, we knew the bird was still there.

 Sumburgh: Sumburgh head and the airfield

Just over 2 hours later, we could see the Sumburgh head and the airfield at the Southern end of the Shetlands and a few minutes we passed over the island's capital, Lerwick.

Lewick: Capital of the Shetlands

Baltasound: Airstrip with the Cape May gardens beyond the far end of the airstrip

We were soon on the ground & only had a few minutes wait before the second plane arrived with another 4 birders from Nottingham, just as the minibus arrived to take us the 5 minutes or so to the Cape May Warbler's favourite garden.

Our Charter Plane: With the flaps down (more to come later)

Arriving at the garden, we found a couple of local birders & Ewan Urqhart (from Oxfordshire) who had been watching it earlier, but nobody was sure if it was still present. A quick bit of pishing & a couple of the guys had seen it briefly in the left hand of 3 stunted Sycamores. Although I caught the movement, I hadn't got the bins onto it & not tickable yet. After 3 or 4 minutes, I picked it up on the ground feeding in front of the middle tree: don't know how it got there without me seeing it move, but it stayed long enough on view for everybody to get onto it & to get some nice views. Excellent - it's always a big relief when you get to see the bird. Now I could settle down and try to get better views & some photos. My camera was still in the rucksack as it had been raining since we landed.

Cape May Warbler

Every few minutes we had short bursts of views, but usually it was partially obscured by branches or leaves. It also disappeared for periods of time & we eventually realised it was going over the wall and feeding on insects on the grass beyond. It moved slowly in the trees compared the way Chiffchaffs bounce around and frequently dangled to grab an insect.

Cape May Warbler: I'm sure I saw some food on this leaf

Here is a great photo from Simon Slade who was on my plane & who has allowed me to add it to the blog.

 Cape May Warbler: Copyright Simon Slade

After about 90 minutes watching the bird on & off, it suddenly flew off & was seen dropping into a garden about a 1/4 mile to the North. That seemed a good point to phone the minibus to take us back to the cafe for some refreshments.

Raven: A pair came over to check out what we were doing. The Shetland Ravens have a really soft call compared to the harsh macho call I'm used to in Dorset

At the cafe, we were able to get an update on the plane from Dave. After landing, the flaps refused to move back into their normal aerodynamic position. Dave confirmed he hadn't been able to get the problem resolved. Franko quickly came up with a phone number for the mechanics at Tingwall airport and the working plane headed off to collect a mechanic from Tingwall.

With no opportunity to consider heading South, Franko, Simon & myself decided to head out birding again to the nearby wood at Halligarth. Halligarth is a ruining house, once lived in by Dr Laurence Edmondson, a local doctor and naturalist who first catalogued much of Shetland's bird life in the early 1800s. These studies were continued by successive generations of the Edmondson and Saxby families. The house and walled garden was gifted to the National Trust for Scotland in 1999 with the hope that the property could be repaired.

 Halligarth: The ruining house & extensive wood

The wood was pretty quiet, with just a couple of Blackbirds and singles of Robin, Goldcrest & Chiffchaff. The Chiffchaff looked a similar colouration to a typical Chiffchaff, but with a slight wingbar, but none of us thought it was a Siberian Chiffy: presumably just one of the many intergrades between our Chiffys and the Siberian Chiffy end of the species. These 5 birds were trying to avoid the Merlin which was making regular around & occasionally into the wood. A couple of Whooper Swans were on a nearby pool. We failed to find much else, before heading back as we were starting to run out of light. Anyway, we were expecting the plane to be fixed or a replacement from Yorkshire to be arriving soon after dark.

Lichen: Impressive Lichen in the wood at Halligarth

We got back to the cafe to learn that our plane had departed to Tingwall with the mechanic & the replacement aircraft wouldn't be able to get into Baltasound as the lights on the small runway weren't working. Therefore, we would have to be taxied the 77 miles down to Sumburgh with 2 ferry crossings to negotiate, where our replacement plane was heading. It was after 17:30 before the taxi had reappeared & we were told Sumburgh airport was shutting at 20:15. When I was looking at journey times when I was considering flying to Sumburgh it was about a 2.5 hour journey, so we knew it was going to be tight. The cafe owner took us down to the Southern ferry from Yell to Mainland Shetland & assured us there would be another taxi waiting on the other side. Fortunately, it was there. We finally arrived into Sumburgh at 20:05 and departed a few minutes later. With a tail wind we were back in Yorkshire in just over 2 hours. A successful, but eventful day with great company. It was a real good job, we didn't end up landing en route to Shetlands (as had happened to one of the charters the week before).

I rarely have dilemmas about my plans for birding, but the next day was looking problematical. The severe storms over the weekend had brought in 2 more extreme American rarities. On the Monday, the third British record of Mourning Dove had been found on the small Hebridean island of Rum (with a further 3 Irish & Isle of Man records), while, a good mate from Southampton, Ken Arber, had found Britain's 9th record of a Hermit Thrush (with a couple more Irish birds). But after no sleep the night before, I was too tired to go for either bird, so it was great to be allowed to kip down overnight in the warm flying clubhouse.

24 Oct 13 - Beginners Luck

I've just completed over 3 months working in London & Birmingham and as a reward I had promised myself a nice camera & lens for bird photography. So it was up early to get out on the first day with the new toy to have a play with it. Southerly winds suggested a coastal location, but an early morning rising tide had me heading to Middlebere.

Middlebere: The view from the Avocet hide showing the Middlebere creek which is one of the last areas of mud in the harbour to be covered on a rising tide (with the Arne RSPB reserve beyond)

A typical selection of species were present including a good numbers of Teal with a few Wigeon, brief views of male Hen Harrier and 1st Winter Marsh Harrier. Waders included 31 Avocets and 120+ Dunlin and a Green Sandpiper.

Fox: This young animal came to check out who was birding in the hide

The highlight of the morning came in the form of a showy Kingfisher which perched up in front of the hide: a species I've rarely seen at Middlebere.

Kingfisher: The all black beak indicates this is a male

Things quietened down once the tide had finished rising. I checked the pager as I was leaving & there was a message of a probable Pallid Swift at Stanpit. This was a long wanted County tick after dipping on the 2 birds on Portland in Nov 84. Swifts often move on quickly so I decided to head straight there rather than wait for confirmation of the id. I ran into Ian & Jean S as I arrived, who said it hadn't been seen for an hour, but fortunately, another local arrived saying it had been over the Honda garage about 10 minutes earlier, before disappearing. Headed off in that direction & not finding anywhere to park, I ended up in the Two Riversmeet car park. A raised bank was the obvious viewpoint & quickly located the Swift in the distance. It took a long time to get decent views & make myself happy it was a Pallid Swift: not helped by switching to the camera every time it came closer.

Pallid Swift: The contrast between the paler secondaries/inner primaries and the darker outer primaries & underwing coverts is a key feature. The bird also was closer to a Sand Martin colouration on the body (which wasn't as obvious on these over exposed photos)

Pallid Swift: Upperside view

Pallid Swift: Note the diffuse pale throat & big beady eye

Pallid Swift: Showing the spread tail

Nick Hopper rang as I was leaving Christchurch to say he had just found a Pallas's Warbler at Studland. Fortunately there was enough light to get over there & located both Nick & more importantly the bird on the path to Old Harry. Only the 3rd Studland record & the second I've seen at Studland. It finished off a great days birding.