Tedious birding diary

Strong south-easterlies again today, which ought in theory to be good. However, it's been pissing it down all day, which has made birding almost impossible. A walk around Toab produced very little apart from a couple of Bramblings, a Fieldfare and a Greenland Redpoll, and the 'Ditch of Delights' was once more completely devoid of birds. I've walked through it five times now, and have yet to see a single bird in it.

We then spent half an hour or so trying to see a very skulking Acro in Sumburgh Quarry before eventually deciding that it was just a Reed Warbler. While we were trying to identify it, a Ring Ouzel flew over, and there was also a Blackcap in the quarry.

Burn of Geosetter is usually worth a look, and today it held a Yellow-browed Warbler, a Chiffchaff, a Goldcrest and a couple of Robins.

After that the rain really set in, so we retired to the house for tea and toast. I suspect we shan't get out again today unless the forecast is very wrong. Tomorrow looks calmer and drier, so that may be the day to get out and find whatever's come in on these south-easterlies.

A propos of nothing in particular

Except that this song has been going round in my head all day and I've now had quite a lot to drink/smoke:

Smells Like Teen Stringing

Gen up on gulls and bring your bins
It's fun to string and to pretend
It's over there, I think I've scored
Oh no, I saw a dodgy bird

Hello, hello, hello, new low?
Hello, hello, hello, new low?
Hello, hello, hello, new low?

At the lighthouse it's less dangerous
Here we are now - where's the Saker?
A Parula on the pager
Here we are now - where's the Saker?
A Wilsonia
An albino
Lammergeier
My Pipilo
Yay!

I'm sure that was a Double-crest
And for this tick I feel blessed
A Little Blue is what I need
And always will until the end

Hello etc

And I forget just why I twitched
Oh yeah, I guess I needed it
I found a lark, it was hard to find
Oh well, whatever, nevermind

Hello etc

At the lighthouse it's less dangerous
Here we are now - where's the Saker?
I've seen Hoopoe, and Falcated
Here we are now - where's the Saker?
A Wilsonia
An albino
Lammergeier
My Pipilo
A denial
A denial
A denial (etc)

My legs hurt

Spurred on by light south-easterly winds and an apparently new Barred Warbler in the Nordagerdi garden first thing, Mark & I put ourselves through a punishing Punkbirder-style dawn-dusk marathon in the field today. We walked miles around Toab, Scatness, Exnaboe and Sumburgh, but saw pretty much nothing apart from a Snow Bunting at Toab and a Brent Goose at Scatness.

Sunrise over Pool of Virkie - just to prove I really was out of bed

By mid afternoon, things were so bad that we were reduced to twitching this newly-arrived migrant Hedgehog at Sumburgh Farm, as it was a Shetland tick.

Not only could we not find anything ourselves, we couldn't even see birds found by the Nordagerdi crew, including their Barred Warbler and a Yellow-browed Warbler at Sumburgh Farm.

Highlight of the day was undoubtedly another tasty curry for tea (beef Madras this time), followed by several beers, including this fine specimen - the only Punk spotted on Shetland this year!

Incidentally, rumours of South Mainland Shetland being overrun by hordes of birders this autumn seem to be completely unfounded. Apart from the Nordagerdi lot, we only saw two other visiting birders today. Presumably the crowd at the Red-throated Pipit was due to it being a Saturday, with most of them just passing through on their way somewhere else.

Fans of Sparky the dog will be pleased to know that he's still going strong; pictured here with his good friend Ginger Cat, hogging the sofa as usual:

The forecast for tomorrow is more of the same, but with added rain. I can't wait.

Slight improvement

Still very windy today. Mark and I had a kick around Toab & Virkie in the morning, including walking down the 'Ditch of Delights' behind Rob's house where Marcus Lawson found a Paddyfield Warbler and a Thrush Nightingale a couple of weeks ago, but for little reward. OK, no reward.

Then in the afternoon we got a message about a Red-throated Pipit down the 'Valley of Plenty' (otherwise known as Clevigarth, just north of Exnaboe). I wouldn't normally bother twitching something like this, having seen several before, but as the alternative was probably seeing fuck-all we went to have a look.

Some entertainment was provided by a halfwit thinking that a perfectly normal Meadow Pipit was the bird ("it's a very bright one!"), but we had to make do with hearing the real bird call a few times and seeing it in flight. There was further egregious stringing when several people claimed to have seen it on the ground, but all we could see was a well-marked Meadow Pipit. Eventually we gave up (although Rob still hadn't even seen the bird in flight) and went to the shop to get some food for this evening.

Thinking that it might be easier to find the bird once the crowds had gone (yes - crowds - on Shetland!!), Mark, Rob & I returned late afternoon, and immediately located it in the same general area. Without the presence of large numbers of cretins it was much easier to get close to it, and we had excellent views of it on the ground. Not the best-marked Red-throat I've seen, but still very distinctive.

The real highlight of the day, however, was the splendid four bean curry (that's four types of bean, not four individual beans) cooked for us by Mark this evening - who needs Andy Lawson?...

Finally for now, an illustration of the sort of undesirables who are coming to Shetland these days - we heard an account of some absolute cock twitching 2 Song Thrushes at Brae (fucking miles away in the north, up near Sullom Voe) because he needed it for his 'trip list'. Even funnier - he dipped!!

P.S. photos of the Red-throated Pipit on Surfbirds and the Shetland website - as you can see, it was a bit of a scrubber!

Rain and snow. No birds.

After an agreeable evening spent in the company of Mr Daniels, Mr Whyte and Mr Mackay, we woke this morning to the sound of absolutely pissing rain.

As usual there was no food in Rob's house, so for breakfast we had to make do with the only thing we could find in the freezer:

Actually that's a slight lie - there was a Meadow Pipit in the freezer as well, along with a bag of prawns that I'm sure was there last year!

Around midday the rain turned to sleet, snow and hail. This finally stopped, and we thrashed Quendale and Channerwick. The 'highlight' was a Robin at the latter.

Terrible news - Andy (pictured above - you can tell he's a 3 Michelin-star chef from his assured frying pan technique) has defected to the Nordagerdi No-hopers, so we'll have to do our own cooking this year. I can see a lot of fry-ups being consumed...

Cold. No birds.

Arrived at Sumburgh after a predictably tedious day mostly spent hanging around various airports. Fuck me - it's cold here! I can't remember it ever being as cold as this in Shetland in October. The wind is currently strong north-westerly, which accounts for the coldness, and also for the general lack of birds (apparently there's not a lot about). Not that I've done any birding yet other than standing outside Rob's house for half an hour or so.

Rob's prediction for the next few days - "we've got a good chance of finding an Arctic Redpoll or a Walrus."

The forecast is more promising for the next few days, although it looks like it's going to stay windy for a bit longer yet.

Andy Lawson has kindly brought a bottle of whisky with my name on it (literally), so that's this evening sorted. I may or may not get out tomorrow...