Shetland - 3rd October

In a stiff south-east wind with occasional showers, some heavy, I began the day birding the Sumburgh Head and Grutness area. There were good numbers of migrants with Goldcrest, Blackcap and Robin seemingly in every patch of cover. At Sumburgh Farm a superb, self found, Little Bunting got the pulse racing and raised the expectations. A Lesser Whitethroat was flushed from a weedy field where there was also a small flock of Brambling. At Grutness a brief flight view of yesterday's Great Grey Shrike was a Shetland tick.

Little Bunting - Sumburgh Farm, Shetland

Brambling - Sumburgh Farm, Shetland

Goldcrest - Sumburgh Farm, Shetland

I then headed up to the headland where the Lanceolated Warbler from yesterday was still showing superbly as it fed along the wall and Goldcrest flitted in the tussocks of Red Fescue. Checking my phone there was no news of anything of great significance which was somewhat surprising given the weather conditions and so I decided to head to Rerwick near to Bigton where a Radde's Warbler was found yesterday. I gave the bird around an hour to show in its chosen tiny clump of Willow and Sycamore but there was no sign - the bird has generally been very elusive.

Goldcrest - Sumburgh Head, Shetland

Lanceolated Warbler - Sumburgh Head, Shetland

Lanceolated Warbler - Sumburgh Head, Shetland

Lanceolated Warbler - Sumburgh Head, Shetland

Lanceolated Warbler - Sumburgh Head, Shetland

Lanceolated Warbler - Sumburgh Head, Shetland

I then found myself at a bit of a loose end, my camera's electronics seemed to have completely failed and so I fiddled with this a while scanning Loch of Spiggie to add a few water birds to my trip list. There were 38 Whooper Swan present and a passage of 246 Barnacle Goose moving south overhead.

Whooper Swan - Loch of Spiggie, Shetland

I then headed to Levenwick where I birded the area around the stores, the highlight here was a Jack Snipe at the mouth of the quarry. I then headed to Hoswick Burn and worked the bushes lining the burn, here the highlight was three Yellow-browed Warbler and a female (type) Redstart. News then broke of a Siberian Stonechat on the road between Cunningsburgh and Blett and so I headed here and got rather brief and distant views. The light was now closing in and I decided to head back to Lerwick to try and sort my camera out. The day had offered so much by, generally, had failed to deliver on a significant rariety. Maybe tomorrow.

Shetland - 15th August

This was my final day on Shetland and having received more detailed information on the Black-throated Thrush at Ward of Scousburgh I decided to give it a bash at first light. I went up the road that leads west off the A970 opposite the northern most turning for the Loch of Clumie and birded the moorland here. There were around 50 Redwing and 30 Fieldfare but no sign of the Black-throated Thrush and so after a couple of hours I abandoned my quest and drove west over the top of the hill and birded the quarries and fields on the west side of the Ward of Scousburgh but saw little but for more Redwing. A scan of Loch of Spiggie from the hill produced 44 Whooper Swan. I then headed north and birded Geosetter where I recorded Chiffchaff, a couple of Goldcrest and more Redwing. I then headed to Hoswick and spent some time birding the Burn of Hoswick where the highlights were two Chiffchaff, Blackcap, a fly over Redpoll and a lovely bright Willow Warbler.

It was pushing on towards my flight time and so I spent the last 1.5 hours at Grutness and Sumburgh walking out onto the Grutness headland where there was a single Wheatear and two rather flighty Snow Bunting. I walked up the road towards the lighthouse scanning the fields and birding the two quarries. There were many Redwing and smaller numbers of Blackbird, Song Thrush and Robin – there definitely appears to have been an influx of these species overnight. In the second quarry I quickly found the long staying Siberian Chiffchaff which was feeding low down in the dead Creeping Thistle.

Willow Warbler - Burn of Hoswick, Mainland Shetland

Willow Warbler - Burn of Hoswick, Mainland Shetland

Willow Warbler - Burn of Hoswick, Mainland Shetland

View south from Ward of Scousburgh, Mainland Shetland

View west from Scousborough over the Bay of Scousborough and the islet of Colsay, 

Mainland Shetland

Geosetter, Mainland Shetland

Black Guillemot with Butterfish Pholis gunnellus - Grutness, Mainland Shetland

Goldcrest - Grutness, Mainland Shetland

Goldcrest - Grutness, Mainland Shetland

Twite - Grutness, Mainland Shetland

Twite - Grutness, Mainland Shetland

Song Thrush - Sumburgh, Mainland Shetland

Siberian Chiffchaff - Sumburgh, Mainland Shetland

Siberian Chiffchaff - Sumburgh, Mainland Shetland

Fulmar - Sumburgh, Mainland Shetland

Fulmar - Sumburgh, Mainland Shetland

Fulmar - Sumburgh, Mainland Shetland

View north from Sumburgh, Mainland Shetland

It was 14:30 and time to head to the airport. On arrival I was informed that my flight was delayed by 50 minutes due to a technical fault with the plane and that rather than flying direct to Inverness we were being routed via Kirkwall on Orkney – I have never been to Orkney! I landed in Inverness only 10 minutes before my connecting flight. I eventually got home at 21:45.

As I was at the airport I checked the weather forecast for the coming night - easterlies for Shetland coming from Eastern Europe and Western Russia - I am fearing a big dip!

Weather system for night of 15th October, looks moderately rare.

Shetland - 14th October

My plan today was to bird the west coast of mainland Shetland tin the hope of finding a mega yank warbler, I was aiming for Tresta and then around the coast via Walls and then to Sandness.

I was on the road at 07:30 and stopping at a view point on the A971 as it swings around the Hill of Sound I scanned into Weisdale Voe hoping for an Orca fin. Looking at the village of Cott below I noticed a great deal of scrub and woodland and so I back tracked and spent the first few hours birding the gardens and the small graveyard which has a number of mature sycamore. It was a great area but there was not a lot to be seen, I recorded three Blackcap, four Goldcrest, 35 Redwing and 10 Fieldfare, still it was a great area and definitely worth a visit.

I then headed to Tresta and birded the area around the Methodist Chapel recording two Goldcrest and a Yellow-browed Warbler. News then broke of a Brown Shrike at Grutness, I considered my options, continue with my plan or dash down for the shrike. The shrike option won and off I went on the 50-minute high speed drive to the south of the island.

I arrived at Grutness at around 12:00 just as the shrike had flown over the brow of the cabbage field it had been frequenting. I drove around the field and up the road to Sumburgh, parked and went climbed the fence to cross the field to where the bird was, but as I grabbed the fence to climb over I received a bolt of electricity that knocked me backwards and off my feet – I had grabbed the electric fence encircling the field, there was no warning placed on the fence. I picked myself up, dusted myself down and then climbed the gate into the field now with a very numb right arm. I got to the group of birders and was soon on the Brown Shrike, relieved to have the bird but my fingers were so numb from the shock that I could hardly focus my binoculars. I spent the next couple of hours with the shrike as it ranged between Grutness Beach, the lighthouse road out beyond Sumburgh Farm and down to Sumburgh Hotel. It was covering some ground as it ranged the fields. On a number of occasions, it was seen to catch White-tailed Bumblebee and impale them on the barbed wire fence. Eventually I left the bird as it went down to Grutness Beach and travelled along the beach towards the airport.

To the end of 2018 there have been 25 UK records of Brown Shrike in Great Britain with the first being from 1985 from Sumburgh. There has been a single spring record with the remainder occurring in September to November, the peak month being September. Shetland has the largest number of records with eight to the end of 2018. This was my second in the UK after seeing the bird that wintered on Staines Moor, Surrey from 11th October 2009 to 2nd January 2010.

Adult female Brown Shrike - Grutness, Mainland Shetland

Adult female Brown Shrike - Grutness, Mainland Shetland

Adult female Brown Shrike - Grutness, Mainland Shetland

Adult female Brown Shrike - Grutness, Mainland Shetland

Adult female Brown Shrike - Grutness, Mainland Shetland

Adult female Brown Shrike with White-tailed Bumblebee - Grutness, Mainland Shetland

Adult female Brown Shrike - Grutness, Mainland Shetland

Adult female Brown Shrike - Grutness, Mainland Shetland

After grabbing a coffee, I headed north up the island and spent the last couple of hours of daylight birding Stonybrake, Upperton and Netherton recording three Mealy Redpoll, one Lesser Redpoll, Blackcap, Red-throated Diver and a greyish Chiffchaff probably of the subspecies abietinus. News then broke of a Black-throated Thrush on Ward of Scousburgh and so I made a dash for this in the fading light but unsurprisingly was unsuccessful. I headed to the hotel for a much-needed shower and a cold beer.

Starling - Cott, Mainland Shetland

Starling - Cott, Mainland Shetland

Starling - Cott, Mainland Shetland

Goldcrest - Cott, Mainland Shetland

Goldcrest - Cott, Mainland Shetland

Cott, Mainland Shetland

Lesser Redpoll - Upperton, Mainland Shetland

Red-throated Diver - Netherton, Mainland Shetland

A rather cold and greyish Chiffchaff, possibly of the subspecies abeitinus, it gave a mournful bisyllabic call with a downward inflected second part to the call - Netherton, Mainland Shetland

Chiffchaff (same bird as above) - Netherton, Mainland Shetland

Sound Recordings - 18th and 19th April

With very little time and lots of work to catch-up with between my two China trips I have not been out birding and I feel like spring in the UK is slipping me by. I have taken to carrying my sound recording kit with me when carrying out bird surveys and here are a selection of recordings from the 18th and 19th April.

I added a number of sound recordings to this post linked to uploads at the Internet Bird Collection (IBC). With the subsequent transfer of data from IBC to the Macaulay Library the links to these became broken. I have therefore subsequently uploaded these sound files to eBird and the recordings for Guildford can be viewed here and those for Dorchester can be viewed here. I have retained the sonograms from these recordings on this post.

This Blackcap near to Guildford, Surrey was energetically singing and calling with the two often mixed together. Singing from deep within a Blackthorn thicket, this was one of my first migrants of the spring. The top recording is a sequence of song while the spectrogram shows three 'tack' calls followed by a burst of song.

This Coal Tit near to Guildford, Surreywas singing emphatically from a stand of pine and came to investigate me as I wandered by. The top sonogram is a song sequence while the bottom is a burst of seven calls showing the broadband 'pit' element of the note and the near constant frequency of the 'chu' element.

This is the song of a Goldcrest near to Guildford, Surrey. The top recording is a full song sequence while the lower sonogram shows a single song sequence followed by a single call. A lot of energy goes into this seemingly simple song.

This is a Great Spotted Woodpecker drumming on a dead oak snag at the edge of its territory in an oak woodland near to Guildford, Surrey with a Blue Tit singing in the background.

This Chiffchaff near to Dorchester in Dorset was avidly defending its territory against other Chiffchaff in the area. The top recording is a long song sequence while the image below shows the structure of the notes used in the song - the 'chiff' being higher frequency with a maximum intensity at around 4.6Khz while the 'chaff' is lower at around 3.9Khz.

This male Yellowhammer near to Dorchester, Dorset was perched in a hedgerow giving an undulating call sequence rather than its classic 'little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheese' song.