The Deskbound Birder: Shetland Mainland

Tuesday 2 October 2018

Shetland Mainland - 2nd October

I was up at 02:00 today, my alarm was set for 03:00 but I just could not sleep. So at 03:00 I set off for Heathrow Airport for my 07:05 flight to Aberdeen and on to Shetland. I had been looking forward to this trip for some time but my constant reviewing of the weather did not bode well with pretty much constant west or north-west winds forecast - Shetland had been very quiet of late. I relaxed in the lounge at Heathrow before my flight and boarded on time but just at departure time it was announced that some numb-nut had decided he/she did'nt want to fly and the baggage staff had to remove his/her bags, this delayed our departure by 30 minutes. My transfer in Aberdeen was incredibly tight and I had fears for my checked in bag so my intuition told me to check with the stewardess and the backage handlers and my fears were confirmed, my bag was not on the plane from Aberdeen to Sumburgh. Now, this had happened to me before and I spent eight days on Fair Isle and Shetland with no luggage and I was not hapy with facing this once again.

The plane landed at Sumburgh pretty much on time at 10:30 and I filed a lost baggage claim and then picked up my car from Bolts Car Hire. The weather was terrible with F7-8 winds and heavy squally showers and so, with no kit, I decided to head to Lerwick to buy a coat, wellies and waterproof trousers. Then, what to do, it was so windy that the birding was going to be difficult so I decided to try and clear up on the few scarce species that were around. First I headed to Boddam for a Scarlet Rosefinch but I was unsuccessful probably mainly due to the atrocious conditions but I did see a pair of rather nice, dark and chunky, North-western (rostrata) type Common Redpoll, presumably from Iceland, Greenland or thereabouts as the wind has been blasting from that direction for sometime. Other than this, it was pretty thin with only 10 Teal and 15 Pink-footed Goose in off the sea of any note.

I then headed to Sumburgh Head and spent the next two hours trying to see a Marsh Warbler in an exposed quarry in a howling gail. After ducking a good number of heavy showers and falling asleep in the car I managed to achieve brief flight views of the bird - the tone of its plumage distinctive but far from adequate looks of this bird. Also here was a single Wheatear sheltering from the gales.

I then headed to Grutness for Snow Bunting and Lapland Bunting but other than a Great Skua, Kittiwake and an adult Arctic Tern I saw nothing and dipped both bunting.

My bag situation was starting to eat me up, with plans of a trip to Tesco to buy a tooth-brush and pants, so I decided to head for the airport and put up a 'fight' for my bag but as I walked in the first thing I saw was my bag. I could at last relax and my plans of buying a tooth-brush and pants changed to heading to Tesco a little later to buy a bottle of red wine!

It was now 16:30 and so I decided to head back to Boddam to try for the Common Rosefinch but had no success. The highlight, while dodging the showers, was a flock of eight Twite and a flock of round 75 Golden Plover. Somewhat annoyed by, once again, dipping the Rosefinch, I headed to Southwick and the beach at Leebitten where another rosefinch was present. I wandered around in the gale photographing an Eider and then eventually bumped into the Common Rosefinch feeding on the Orache and Perennial Sow-thistle along the shoreline. It was somewhat elusive in the strong winds but eventually showed moderately well. A Merlin performed over the settlement and eventually flew south and I decided it was time to head for the Lerwick Hotel, my accomodation for the next couple of nights. I was knackered.