Halfway House

Six days gone; another six to go.

Another quiet day with continuing 'nothingy' moderate southerly winds. Walked round the Toab crop fields/iris beds/ditches several times, but nothing new apart from a Barred Warbler. Got a reasonable photo of a Lapland Bunting perched on a fence first thing, and also a nice Shetland Starling (1st-winter male for anyone who's interested in that sort of thing) in Rob's garden this evening. Tomorrow, however, looks like a totally different kettle of halibut, with the wind going round to south-east again, and then full-on easterly for several days. Early night tonight, and no whisky. Mainly because we finished it last night!

I was going to keep this and pretend I'd taken it in Leicestershire when I got back, but I thought that might have been a bit too obvious...

Gratuitous Twitching

With the weather looking unpromising for finding anything round here, we headed north today for a spot of twitching. First stop was Voe, where there were a few birds, but nothing terribly exciting. However, a major discovery was that pies are available for sale direct from the bakery there. Enquiries were made, and – result! – the 'King of Pies', the fabled macaroni cheese and bean was 'obtained', along with a cheese, bean and tattie. Having eaten the macaroni pie, I am in full agreement with Mark that this is unbeatable (at least in Shetland – I think the Lochinver Larder's offerings might top it, at least in the pastry department!).

On to Eshaness, where the Buff-bellied Pipit at Tangwick initially only showed itself to Mark before disappearing. So we went off to the lighthouse to look at the 2 Buff-breasted Sandpipers – I got my regulation piss-poor photo of one of them:

We then went back to where the Buff-bellied Pipit had been earlier, and had crippling views of it from the car. This time even I couldn't fuck it up – this is undoubtedly the best photo of a BB rarity I've ever taken, although that's not saying much. It was also my 200th Shetland bird – damn, I forgot to get that T-shirt made up!

After this we didn't see a great deal, my first Yellow-browed Warbler of the holiday and a Jack Snipe, both at Isbister, being the only birds of any note.

Silly photos of the day – Mark being attacked by a ravenous pie-eating cat at Orbister:

Filling a hole

Not much to write about today – the two highlights of a very windy day were 1) filling in a gaping and extremely tarty hole (oo-er) on my 'insufferably smug, self-righteous bastard' (in other words self-found) list: a Barred Warbler briefly behind the Toab shop this afternoon – get in! and 2) the even briefer appearance of a lasagne pie in the Toab shop shortly afterwards, which was a fitting celebration.

I managed to get possibly the worst photo ever of a Barred Warbler to satisfy any doubters of my claim before it fucked off over the fields towards Quendale Bay, never to be seen again.

Apart from that, it was a case of slogging round the Greater Virkie area all day seeing very little. Given the weather forecast of continuing strong southerly winds, I suspect this will be the case until Friday/Saturday. And then it will all kick off big time if the current forecast is correct.

In the meantime, here's a nice photo of a Brambling:

Still all to play for

Fortunately we decided to give the Pallas's Gropper a miss first thing this morning and wait for the inevitable crowd to bugger off before heading to Levenwick. As a result, we were not in any way involved in the debacle that was to follow. The Great Grey Shrike was still in the willows first thing, and then we finally caught up with the Radde's Warbler at Sumburgh Farm. This was showing quite well and I managed to get a half decent photo of it:

Mark was getting increasingly twitchy though, and we were beginning to think we might have to take him to the doctor for some Ritalin. Eventually we gave in and set off for Levenwick via the Toab shop (still no pies!). But all Mark's pre-tick nerves were in vain: just as we arrived the first doubts were beginning to be expressed about the bird, and on viewing photos on John's laptop, it was obvious that it was in fact just a Grasshopper Warbler. Arse. I need Gropper for my Shetland list, but couldn't raise the enthusiasm to give the irises more than a half-hearted kick before giving up.

As we were walking back up the hill, news came through that the Booted Warbler at Channerwick had been re-identified (or rather confirmed, as the original observers apparently suspected that's what it was) as a Sykes' Warbler. As that was going to be our next port of call anyway, we shot off to see that. After half a dozen flight views it finally showed reasonably well down near the beach, but not for long enough to get any photos. Hurrah. A splendid tick, which made up for not seeing a Pallas's Gropper. And I'm sure I'll see one of those eventually if I keep coming to Shetland for long enough!

Next on the agenda was a pie twitch to Sandwick. Arriving just after those bastards from Levenwick had cleaned out the shelves, it looked like we had dipped again, but no, Mark in his role as self-styled President of the British Pie Munching Association, did his 'do you know who I am?' routine to the woman behind the counter and as if by magic a batch of lasagne pies appeared! Unfortunately by this time I had already purchased a Chinese chicken sandwich, which was very nice, but no substitute for a lasagne pie. A quick look around a very windy Hoswick produced nothing more than a Pied Flycatcher, so it was back to the house for a cup of tea. Back at Virkie there was a 1st-winter Little Gull on the Pool – another Shetland tick for me.

And so to the 'score' (or should that be skor?) – does a misidentification count as an own goal? If so, it's 1-1, or perhaps 0-0 if the Gropper cancels out the Swainson's? No doubt the Levenwick Lepers will argue that it's really back to 1-0, but either way there's still plenty of time (9 days to be precise) for us to come back. We'll just have to be doubly on our guard now to avoid joining the ever-growing list of 'gurners' (see Brown Flycatcher thread on Birdforum!) this autumn.

Post-pub edit: I felt John Hague's description of the Sykes' Warbler's supercilium deserved a wider audience: "it sort of peters out behind the eye like a dribble of spunk." I'd love to see the finders include that gem in their BBRC description!

Sack the Manager!

Not content with their Swainson's Thrush yesterday, the Levenwick Leviathans (can't really call them the Levenwick Losers any more!) gripped us off again with a Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler in the irises at South Punds just as it was getting dark this evening! Can we come back from 2-0 down? Hmmm.

Meanwhile, down here in the Virkie/Sumburgh area, despite apparently perfect south-easterlies and showers, there were far fewer birds today. We tried to see the Radde's Warbler at Sumburgh Farm, but failed (it reappeared after we left of course), and the only bird of any note was a very flighty Great Grey Shrike around the Virkie Willows (and briefly in Rob's garden), which I managed to get this poor photo of as it landed briefly about 200 yards away. At least you can tell what it is.

Lots of birds; lots of birders

We arrived at Sumburgh at 11:00 today after an uneventful journey to find Shetland literally sinking under the weight of birds. I can't remember there being so many migrants around in early October as there are at the moment. A fairly thorough flog of the crop fields around Toab and Exnaboe produced: Short-toed Lark, Bluethroat, Black Redstart, 4 Lapland Buntings, Redstart, 4+ Whinchats, Stonechat, loads of Bramblings, Garden Warbler, 2 Reed Buntings and lots of Goldcrests.

Around 5pm, Mark and I were at Sumburgh Head, where there was a very skulking Sedge Warbler in the rosebushes (Shetland tick!) when we were startled by a loud noise coming from the direction of Levenwick. It was the sound of a gauntlet being forcefully thrown down by John Hague, Andy Lawson & Dave Gray who had found a fucking Swainson's Thrush! If I'd been wearing a hat I'd have taken it off to them. You may have to wait a while for John's gripping account and photo though, as the WiFi where they are staying is currently not working.

As both of us had only ever seen one Swainson's (mine was 20 years ago and Mark's even longer than that) we thought we ought to go and have a look at it. Arriving at Levenwick we were greeted by a scene more reminiscent of Scilly than Shetland – there are about 50 people visible in this photo, and by the time we left I reckon the crowd had about doubled in size – unprecedented!

Anyway, we did see it, although not very well – I only saw it in flight a couple of times, but managed to see the distinctive Catharus underwing the second time.

One other notable sighting today was the Exnaboe 'Hitler cat', which some people may remember from my old blog a few years ago. He's still going strong, and was obviously contemplating a bit of trampolining when we saw him.

Will the challenge be taken up by the Sunnydell-ites? Stay tuned to find out....