Shetland is a fantastic place to see birds from all over the world. We saw birds from North America, Russia, Siberia and from Mediterranean Europe. All in one week. This is one of the reasons that Shetland attracts birders every autumn. You never know what you may see and it could have come from just about anywhere on the planet. And that very realisation is exciting every single morning and keeps one’s interest up throughout the day. That and caffeine. They are my equal favourite drugs.
This blog post documents some of the rarer bird species that we saw in Shetland in early October 2019. First, two American waders with very similar breeding distributions, Semipalmated Sandpiper and American Golden Plover:
A juvenile Semipalmated Sandpiper was found on the beach at Grutness, south Mainland, on 28th September and was still present on our first full day, October 4th. It was part of a small wader flock that also contained Dunlin, Sanderling, Ringed Plover. It was noticeably smaller than all those species:
The Semipalmated Sandpiper was a juvenile bird, that remained for two days after we saw it. It seems a fair bet that this bird was hatched in the North American Arctic in the summer and was then was caught up in an easterly moving airflow which brought it to Shetland.
The other North American wader species that we saw was an adult American Golden Plover. This bird arrived at Cullivoe in north Yell on 1st September. We caught up with it on 9th October. It is widely assumed that adult American birds are more likely to have crossed the Atlantic the previous autumn as juvenile birds. They have then remained on the wrong side of the pond, presumably associating with European Golden Plovers.
We went to see the bird on Yell, but without much real hope of locating it. There is a lot of suitable habitat and a lot of Golden Plover flocks. We were scanning through a large flock on the crest of a hill when Dave located a summer plumaged plover at the bottom of the valley. It was distant at first, but even at long range the white supercilium and long white flank markings were visible:
The plover flock was then spooked (not by me Dave!) and took flight. Fortunately for us, they flew straight at us and landed in the field in front of us:
Here, even though it was a bit dark for really nice pictures, the ‘scope views were fabulous. The long wings, extending over the tail were visible, and we could appreciate the smaller size and slimmer build. The black extended onto the undertail coverts and the white shawl expanded into two prominent white areas, which were especially visible when the bird was viewed head-on. The overall white pattern reminded me of a judge’s wig:
Second, a tale of two Stonechats. Both from the east, one possibly from a long way east: Siberian and Stejneger’s Stonechats:
Our first Siberian Stonechat played cat and mouse for a while. After 45 minutes searching, we had returned to the car for food when news broke that it had been relocated in the oat field, seen on the left in the picture above. It remained distant and elusive, spending the majority of its time on the ground feeding, only sitting up occasionally:
Later in the week, we saw another stonechat species on Unst. Originally identified as a Siberian Stonechat, this bird is now suspected to be a Stejneger’s Stonechat, potentially the fourth for Britain. It was even more distant than the Siberian Stonechat. It appeared darker, especially on the upperparts. The white throat was clearly demarked from the orange underparts, rendering it slightly Whinchat-like.
The inner underwing coverts were extensively black, much more so than the Siberian Stonechat at Brake, so presumably this bird is a male:
The rump is a key feature and through the ‘scope we could easily make out the deep apricot colouration. Making out markings on the rump was harder. I nearly captured a picture of the bird in flight, see below, but as the bird was pretty distant it is a miracle we have any pictures at all:
This bird was trapped and ringed two days after we saw it, so there should be some DNA confirmation of its identity before too long.
Finally, three birds from southern Europe, again with arguably similar breeding distributions. All three of these species breed in Mediterranean Europe and winter further south, in Africa or the Middle East. None should be on the Northern Islands in October:
The European Bee-eater was discovered on 29th September, the Short-toed Lark on 4th October and Western Bonelli’s Warbler on 5th October. Bee-eaters are a feast of colours, the yellow throat patch is conspicuous at some range. This bird would perch out of the wind behind houses at Ollaberry, then sail away to catch bees. We wondered what effect that this may have on the local bee population. Jason quipped, in sympathy, “we’ve made honey in this valley for 150 years!“, to which I added “…until the winged destroyer came!” But, the devastation of the local honey industry apart, it is always a pleasure to see a Bee-eater. Every feather tract is a different, rainbow bright, colour:
The Short-toed Lark proved the hardest to get good views of, not least because we saw it as the outer fringes of Hurricane Lorenzo swept in. I could hardly hold my camera lens horizontal in increasing gale-force south-easterly winds. It is a testament to modern camera equipment that there is any sort of picture at all:
The final bird brought us into the company of a number of other birders for the only time in our week on Shetland. Being near other birders is something none of us really enjoy, we are more go-out-on-your-own kind of guys. We barely tolerated each other over the course of the week. And we know that the public sometimes struggles with the behaviour of large groups of birders too. However, we saw no conflict with the local population. In fact, most people were open and friendly towards us. “Are you going to see some fantastic wee birdie?” asked one of the passengers on a local ferry, in a thick Shetland accent. He then showed us a picture of a bird he had taken in his Shetland garden. A few looks were exchanged as we in the back of the car speculated on what he may have photographed. Guesses ranged from Long-tailed Duck to Siberian Blue Robin. But no… a Shetland Wren. Fortunately.
The sign below was the only indication of conflict that we came across. This notice was stuck to the inside of a vehicle parked outside a house at Baltasound, Unst, next to Britains’s most northerly Post Office.
There is a decent area of scrub behind these buildings. The owners had understandably got fed up with birders roaming around their garden. The famous “Right to Roam” in Scotland, brought in by the Land Reform Act 2003, gives everyone rights of access over land and inland water throughout Scotland for recreational purposes, as long as they behave responsibly. Technically birders could go anywhere looking for birds. The real question is whether they should. Respect for the property owners seems only sensible.
One afternoon we had decided to head out to the west coast to see if we could locate any Orca. A pod had been reported regularly in the week before we left, but sightings had dried up almost as soon as we arrived in Shetland. Andy suggested that we drive to West Burra, where the Orca pod had been seen last week. As we headed south news broke that a Bonelli’s Warbler had been found… on West Burra. It would seem rude not to pop in and say hello.
We were aware that there would be other birders present, but none of us had any experience of twitches on Shetland, so we had no idea of how many people turn up. We had a sweepstake on the number of birders we would see, guesses ranged from 8 to 28. As we pulled up, we could see that the bird had attracted some interest:
In no time there were over 50 people present, but many knew each other and a few well known Shetland names were there too, plus Paul and Vicky Wren from Oxfordshire. Social niceties were put to one side when the Western Bonelli’s Warbler appeared in the hedge surrounding the house. Through the bare branches, a ghostly pale face appeared, the dark eye standing out against the pale head feathers:
As the bird emerged, it appeared nearly pure white from the front:
As it worked it’s way towards the sun-lit side of the hedge, the upperpart colouration could be appreciated. the bright yellow-green fringing to the flight feathers and tail bases really stood out:
The Bonelli’s Warbler then worked it’s way around towards a bath that was being used a water trough. The bird popped out of the hedge and perched on the bath. This enabled me to utter one of the more unusual sentences that I have uttered in my life: “Bonelli’s on the bath”. It then defecated and dropped back into the hedge. The two birders below rushed over to try to collect the poo sample for DNA testing. Such is the way of modern birding.
Next, the final instalment: three extraordinary moments on Shetland.