A Swift End to a Game of Cat and Mouse

The Swift
A lovely Sunday afternoon digging potatoes came to an abrupt halt with news of a rare Swift in Yorkshire.
Initially identified as a Pacific Swift, this would have been rare indeed, but not one to set the panic alarm going as I was lucky enough to catch up with one in Suffolk a few years back.
But the identification soon came round to White-rumped Swift, the first ever record for Britain! It was surely brought up from North Africa on the same unusual southerly airflow that had Holbeach setting record temperatures in the same week - 79 degrees F in mid October.
A quick calculation told me that I could never get there before dark - news an hour earlier and I wold have been busting a gut to get there.

A couple of hours sleep and I was up again, heading through the night toward Hornsea Mere on the Yorkshire coast. I wasn't the only one. In the dim light of dawn a steady stream of birders were heading across the fields to the last known place where the bird was seen as it drifted off in the gloom last night. Our best hope was that it had headed to roost or hooked up with a group of house martins and would return to feed over the mere in the morning.

But birding does not always go to plan. Six hours stood in that field and I finally succumbed to the idea that this rarest of rare birds might just have slipped the net. Reluctantly I returned to the car and began the journey south. I was hoping to be home in time to accompany Sue to the vets with Boris - nothing too worrying but I did want to be there.

I tentatively drove back across the Humber Bridge (I am not great with heights and don't like crossing this bridge), but no sooner was I across than I started receiving messages that the swift had been seen at Spurn, a long promontory off South Yorkshire which funnels migrating birds along a narrow spit of land. Details were sparse, but I had no option but to turn around and head at breakneck speed back over the Humber Bridge, through Hull and along the torturous country roads which lead down to Spurn.
By the time I arrived the sparse details of the sighting had become even murkier. Today was starting to feel like a waste of a day, one to forget. The first sniff of a really good bird all autumn, for it has been a poor one birding-wise, and it had ended up with a disappointing end.

The Cat
As we stood dejected on a windy and desolate stretch of Yorkshire coast, the birding gods looked down and decided to shuffle the pack a little.
Phones and pagers whirred into action as news of a Grey Catbird came through - at Land's End in Cornwall, a mere 8 or so hours away.
Grey Catbird has a certain reputation among twitchers. The only previous record was on Anglesey. It was found on an October Thursday 17 years ago. The bird was highly elusive, but stayed around until the Friday. At that point I was confined to waiting for weekends to see rare birds and so I joined a small army of weekend birders in the hunt for the bird. There were various shouts and alarms, but to cut a long story short most people left disappointed. A compound full of tall gorse had been pretty much flattened over the course of the day but there had been neither sight nor sound (yes, it does miaow!) of the bird all day... except that some people were adamant they actually had seen it - these people became known as the Saturday Catbirders.

And that was it, Grey Catbird into the annals of birding history but not onto most people's lists.

I decided to head straight for Cornwall. The earlier I could get there, the more sleep I could get in the back of the estate car. And so at 1 in the morning I rolled up in a field in deepest south-west Cornwall. There was one other car there but we knew there would be many others arriving through the night. I put the seats down, laid out a selection of coats that live in the car, and tried to get some shut eye.

The Mouse
Well, that was the plan... until I heard scuttling in the roof of the car. It couldn't be, could it? Then chewing and more scuttling. The mouse (though it sounded like there might now be a family) which had been setting my car alarm off for a couple of weeks now, was clearly still living in the innards of the car!
A sleepless night ensued, only enlivened by an unsuccessful game of splat the mouse as it scuttled around in the roof space above my head.

This probably explains my bleary-eyed lack of sharpness in the morning. As the sun rose there were a couple of hundred birders ready for the Catbird show, a couple of hundred birders bearing the scars of that Anglesey bird of 17 years ago. We stared into the bushes where the bird had last been seen. For two hours we stared.
This was turning into a bad couple of days.

Then suddenly the mood changed. People were seeing the bird. A woman next to me was excitedly exclaiming that she was watching it. But the only words that came out were "I've got it. I've got it". My bleary eyes were not seeing whatever she was seeing and pleas for directions were met with "I've got it. I've got it".
Other people had it too. In fact just about everybody... except me. There's always one person who doesn't see what everyone else is seeing. And on this occasion it was me. Not a nice feeling.
By the time the bird flew I was surrounded with people quietly celebrating and congratulating each other. This was not going well for me!

Then another call, further up the line. By the time I got there the bird had disappeared again. This sighting was less convincing and I just didn't know whether to stay put or go back to where I was when the bird was first seen. 

Then another call, from where I had been standing! By the time I got there, the bird had dropped into thick cover, but I was more certain that I was just a few seconds away from seeing the bird.
Time to control the breathing and have faith that fate would indeed be cruel if the bird were never to show itself again. A really helpful birder next to me did everything he could to help me get onto the bird and then up it popped into the middle of a small sallow.
Grey Catbird!
All the effort had been worthwhile. I went from being ready to quit birding forever to enjoying the bird and celebrating with everyone else.
I never heard it miaow, but the Catbird eventually gave itself up and showed very well.

Hopes of more American birds turning up in Cornwall were high so gradually people left the site and fanned out into the valleys of Cornwall to find that elusive mega. I found myself down by Minack Theatre following the coast path. Really I just needed some wind-down time before making the journey back to Lincolnshire.

I was supposed to be chairing an open meeting of the Smallholders Committee in the evening, but it was unlikely I could make it back in time and I would be in no fit state.
And so I slowly headed back across country. My car was almost broken as one of the exhaust brackets was detached and the brake disks were badly warped. The long journey had exacerbated the problems which were combining to make for some very uncomfortable car handling. By the time I rolled back onto the farm I was feeling pretty bumped and bruised myself.

Arthur keeps me company in bed

The next five days are a blur. I don't know whether it was pushing myself so hard (but I've always done that) or just unlucky, but I almost immediately came down with a fever which had me laid up in bed for five days.

Anyway, I am just about fixed now, though still a bit tender. The car is fixed too.
We are raring at the bit, ready for more rare birds!

The Mouse (Part Two)
On the second day of my sickness I heard a dripping inside the wall of the downstairs toilet. We have been looking for a leak as a couple of long-term damp patches and a drop in boiler pressure indicated there was a problem somewhere. The drip was getting worse through the day so we eventually took the decision to call an emergency plumber - not a step to take lightly. Astronomical does not describe it, but eventually we managed to get somebody to come out without having to sell all our limbs.
It didn't take long to find water. As the plumber investigated downstairs, I started unscrewing floorboards upstairs, where the cause of the problem quickly became apparent.



Mr Mouse had been at it again!
As for the car, two trays of bait have been consumed and one field mouse has been caught in a trap.

Going For A Song

Tuesday 15th May 2018

Going For A Song
Last night I WhatsApp'ed my birding mates... Test week. I am ****ed if something turns up this week.

To translate for those that don't know me outside of smallholding, I am a part-time primary school teacher. Part of my job is to prepare and support Year 6 children for their tests, for the poor things have a series of impossible hoops to jump through. It is a result of endless educational 'improvements' so that successive governments can either lambast teachers for not doing their jobs properly or boast about how good they are since they have successfully taken the child out of Britain's children.

The second part of my message refers to my habit of dropping absolutely everything to head off to far-flung parts of Britain to see rare birds, especially ones I've not seen before in this country. This happens more and more infrequently as the list of birds 'needed' goes down.

And so to Tuesday morning. I was not required at school today, but Wednesday and Thursday would be 100% obligatory attendance. It was a slow start to the day. Even the incessant hungry bleating of the two bottle-fed lambs failed to stir me from my slumber and it was only just before 9 that I finally woke up. This, I hasten to add, is not usual.
I checked my phone to see what the day had already brought and there it was.

SONG SPARROW. 7:49.. FAIR ISLE. TRAPPED AND RINGED IN PLANTATION.

I need that.
In case you don't know, Fair Isle is essentially a huge inhabited rock which juts up above the sea in between the Orkney Isles and the Shetland Isles. There are ways on and off. A boat three times a week and a daily flight. These go from Shetland Mainland. To get to Shetland Mainland requires a 15 hour boat journey from Aberdeen or a scheduled plane flight from said same city or further south at a cost.
There is one other way. To fly up there from further south in a small plane. In fact, that is pretty much the only way to reach Fair Isle in a hurry. But my extended sleep this morning surely meant that all such options would have been already bagged by others who share my impulsive and compulsive hobby.
With the next two days tied up, I resigned myself to moping around in the garden all day. I would start to make plans for Friday, but not right  now.

I attended to all the animals and it was while I was feeding the turkeys that my phone rang. Did I want to fly to Fair Isle today? You bet!
The precise details of our flight, including the pilot, the plane and the departure airfield, were still not clear, but I needed to start driving North towards the various options. If I left it until the plane was sorted, I wouldn't be able to get to the airfield soon enough.
So I headed cross country to the A1. This road is infuriating when you are in a hurry, as you basically travel at the speed of the slowest lorry or motorhome. There were even two tractors today.
As I approached the first airfield option, I received a phone call that we were flying from further North, up in Yorkshire. The pilot was driving down from Newcastle and should be with the plane by about 1.30pm. There was time for me to jump cars in with my other two birding friends and our arrival time at the airfield should be about the same.
With a flight time of about two and a half hours we should be landing on Fair Isle before 5pm, which would give us a couple of hours to see the bird before we would need to head off again. The last option to top up with fuel was 8pm at Sumburgh on Shetland Mainland. It is not possible to land and take off from Fair Isle landing strip with a full tank, so a refuel on the way home is necessary.

The plan was falling into place, except that the bird, released in to the bird observatory garden at 8.30am, had only shown once briefly at 11am. After plane preparations and putting fuel in, we eventually took off at 2.15pm with no further news of the bird. The weather was glorious so there were no hold ups. We could identify every feature of the landscape as we headed up the East coast and out across the sea towards the islands. I even had enough phone reception to ascertain that the bird had shown again briefly at about 2.30pm.
So that was two sightings in six hours. We would have two hours on the island! Goodbye finger nails.

I have only been to Fair Isle a few times, each time on a small plane, and I am averaging just over one new bird for each trip.
Savannah Sparrow and Siberian Rubythroat 2003. Chestnut-eared Bunting 2004. Swinhoe's Petrel 2013.
As we approached the island I hoped I could make it five lifers in four trips (or more!)

Fair Isle on a clear day

The view down over the island. We did a pass over the bird observatory before dropping down to land on the air strip.

We were concerned that nobody seemed to be looking into the observatory garden as we flew over.

Did this mean the bird had flown?

We had received news of the Song Sparrow's continued presence just before landing. This could be good news, but could also mean that it would not show again for a while.
The lovely thing about landing on small Scottish Islands is that there is always a welcoming committee and they always know about the bird. We were very pleased to hear that the bird was now appearing underneath a feeder with some regularity. We were also very grateful to be able to jump in the back of a car - on the floor, no seats! - and get a lift to the observatory.
Viewing of the bird was from the lounge. How very civilised!

One plane load of birders from Essex had got there before us and there were a few over from Shetland Mainland. There were also those who were up on holiday staying in the bird observatory.
We ran through into the lounge to the news that the bird was showing right now!

I always seem to miss being photographed at twitches, 

but I am actually in this photo. 

I raised my binoculars to peer over those kneeling on the floor in front of me and it only took a few seconds to pick up a movement on the ground deep in the vegetation. A couple of seconds later I had views of a stripy brown back and then the bird turned so that all I could see through the tiny gap was its head in full view. The other two hadn't seen it yet, but it wouldn't be long before it hopped to the outside of the garden into full view. I won't describe it. Pictures do the job better.

This bird had come all the way from North America. It was only the eighth Song Sparrow ever to grace our shores (but the fourth for Fair Isle following birds in 1959, 1969 and 1989.) Most long-time birders saw one in 1994 near Seaforth Docks which had undoubtedly hopped off a ship but is still deemed an acceptable tick. That was the last one.
It was one of those birds which, quite possibly, I would never get the chance to see in this country... until today!
We watched the Song Sparrow for a while, enjoying excellent views as it hopped around in the vegetation under the feeder, occasionally coming forwards through the fence and into the open. It was only about 15 feet away from us. We had not expected views to be anything like this.

Pictures courtesy of @FI_Obs twitter feed

The island also had another special visitor. For just over the hill, zooming around over a rocky beach, was a Crag Martin, a bird which I had only ever seen once in this country. It would be rude to ignore it while we were here. It was only a five minute jaunt over the hill, though you had to stand quite near the edge of the cliff for views down onto the beach. It took a while to pick the bird up, but it was obvious when it showed and easy to pick up from the swallows and house martins which were also catching insects. A gloriously sunny day, sitting on the cliff looking down on the beach and watching puffins looping round over the sea, a Crag Martin below us and a Song Sparrow just over the hill. Fair Isle at its very best.

My travel companions tracking the Crag Martin's every move.

We would have stayed longer but wanted to get back to the Song Sparrow, which continued to afford fantastic views over the next hour. We planned to stay till 7.15, but at 6.30pm we received an urgent message from the airfield that the weather was closing in and the wind was switching.
We bundled into the back of a car, sped to the airfield and jumped in the plane.
The weather can turn fast up here and we didn't even have time to bid farewell to other birders.

The pilot taxied down the airfield, swung it round and headed hell for leather into the wind. We took off into low cloud and were buffeted around a fair bit. The pilot had a heading which would clear us of the rocky crags, but it was still a bit hairy as we bumped around in thick cloud.
It was a relief to come out of the gloom and look back on the island which was shrouded in thick cloud.

After a quick fuel stop at Wick, we settled down for the journey home.
It had been quite a surreal day, not quite what I was expecting when I belatedly woke up this morning. Once again Fair Isle had delivered. What a magical place. Maybe one day I will return and stay for longer than a few hours.

Views from the plane were spectacular as the sun went down somewhere round about Teesside.
Our landing was smooth as could be and we bade farewell to the pilot before heading back down south.
I rolled back onto the farm at just past one in the morning.
It had been quite an eventful last sixteen hours.

Tomorrow, SATs tests. Poor kids.

Black Guillemot not coming out in The Wash

Tuesday 12th December 2017
Back To Cut End
Another go at the Black Guillemot today.
I was quite impressed with Cut End yesterday. It is reached by driving to Boston then turning toward The Wash. The country lane takes you to the banks of the River Witham, from where it is a bracing one mile walk to where the river emerges into The Wash. There sits a brick hide which provides shelter and excellent views of the river mouth and the sea.
On the other side of the river sits the fabulous RSPB reserve of Frampton Marsh.

As the tide rises, so the sea birds come close inshore. Seals bob up and down in the river mouth and parties of Brent Geese fly overhead as they are pushed off the saltmarsh. There may have been no Black Guillemot, but yesterday I saw four types of grebe and a Great Northern Diver all which came right into the mouth of the river.
If anything, despite the snow having thawed, it was colder than yesterday. But I decided to risk taking the dogs along. I knew they would love the jaunt along the sea wall but I was a bit worried they would be disruptive when we got there and that they might get cold if I stayed there very long.

As it was they were a delight. Boris had a wild run around with a Cockerpoo that he met and both dogs introduced themselves fairly politely to the half dozen or so other birders who were there. Boris was happy to mooch around along the seawall and on the rocks, while Arthur soon got cold and came onto my lap for a cuddle. I wrapped him in a blanket but he eventually ended up inside my warm jumper.



No Black Guillemot again, but two Red-necked Grebes were notable and a Marsh Harrier gave stunning views. Slightly more distantly a Slavonian Grebe spent most of its time under water and a Razorbill bobbed up and down on the waves.
After a couple of hours high tide had passed by and Boris too was getting cold. We headed back along the river to where the car was parked, back through Boston and home just in time to do the chickens' late afternoon feed.

The dogs didn't do much else for the rest of the evening.

Snow reason to worry

Sunday 10th December 2017
A touch of the white stuff
Snow brings out the child in people. I woke up at 7.30am and peered out of the window to see if the forecast white stuff had come true. It had. Outdoors was a winter wonderland and the flakes were falling thick and fast.
Then I remembered I am an adult with a smallholding. The sheep need hay. The poultry will need checking. It'll be hand-stingingly cold. Then the inevitable slush, and mud, and wet animal bedding.



The dogs were a little bemused and Boris went running madly in circles around the poultry pen.
The ducks and geese seemed completely unperturbed. The chickens were less keen. The sheep just brushed it off lightly.

I on the other hand nearly got frostbite in my fingers and decided to stay inside in front of the fire.

We were on the edge of the snow band and got off lightly. By late morning the snow had turned to rain and by darkness most of it was well on the way to disappearing.

Monday 11th December 2017
Dentist day
Only one thing weighing heavily on my mind today - my visit to the dentist.
To take my mind off it I headed out to The Wash to spend some time out in the elements. I was looking for a Black Guillemot which had been about for a few days, a rare bird in Lincolnshire. I would have gone yesterday as this one was a good candidate for the High Arctic form which would be a first for me, but I had been put off by the weather.
As it happens that had been a bad decision. In the end Boston had been snow-free and today the bird did not put in an appearance. Still, it took my mind off the dentist.

Walking along the River Witham to where it meets The Wash

The dental visit went without incident. I was so pleased when my new dentist said she could do the two fillings without the need for injections.

I got back onto the smallholding just in time to witness a glorious sunset.

A Siberian Waif

Monday 4th December 2017
A Siberian waif
Today I found the rarest bird to grace the smallholding since I moved here. Even more satisfying was the fact that it was in the patch of young woodland that I planted when I moved in.
I was walking the circuit of the smallholding with the dogs when a bird started calling loudly behind me. The call was clear but certainly not that of any bird species I would expect to encounter on such a walk.
I located the bird straight away, a chiffchaff. This small plain warbler is a common summer migrant to this country and one whose song and call I am very familiar with. I see chiffchaffs on the farm mostly in the autumn when birds migrate through.
Increasingly chiffchaffs winter in this country, though mostly in the south. Early December is certainly a notable time for one to appear here, but there was something special about this one. For as soon as I laid eyes on it that strange call made sense. The bird was pretty much plain brown (paler below, but importantly no hints of yellow or olive-green), even plainer than our usual chiffchaffs. Chiffchaffs come in a range of dull colours, but one so plain and brown would certainly come from quite a way east. Paired with the distinctive call this bird was undoubtedly a Siberian Chiffchaff. I played the call on a phone app just to be sure and it matched 100%. The bird even appeared to call back. The Latin subspecies name for this type of chiffchaff is tristis, which means sad, presumably because the call is a drawn out, monotone plaintive one. Unfortunately not judged to be a full species in its own right, but I have only ever encountered a handful of these birds in my years of birding. I have seen plenty of brownish chiffchaffs, greyish ones too, ones with odd calls too, but very few which so clearly match all the criteria for a tristis.
How fantastic that such a small bird can have made it all the way from Siberia to my farm! It should be wintering in the Himalayas but presumably fancied a bit of a flatter landscape.

For non-birders, just so you know just how plain the bird is! Not my actual bird, but a dead ringer, this one in Doncaster in 2009.


I found the bird late afternoon and it was generally hanging about with two blue tits. I watched it for maybe half an hour, at which point it was time to give the chickens a few handfuls of grain to keep them going through the cold night. Darkness falls quickly at this time of year and presumably the bird went to roost somewhere nearby.
Interestingly, a Siberian Chiffchaff was also reported on the Yorkshire coast at almost exactly the time as I found mine and another was trapped and ringed on the Essex coast two days later.

Wednesday 6th December 2017
Tuesday was my six-monthly hospital visit to London, so I was unable to check if the bird was still present. Having been poked and prodded I stayed at home Wednesday and just mooched around the smallholding with the dogs. There was no sign of the Siberian Chiffchaff all day.

I did however come across this beaut of a mangel wurzel. I posted it onto the Smallholders Facebook page along with the message

I 💚 mangel wurzels

Destination Unknown - EPIC TWITCHING from Shetland to Scilly

All bird photos in this blog post are shamelessly lifted from the Facebook pages, Twitter feeds or blogs of people who were friends at the beginning of this week's birding. (It saves me the effort of having to carry and look after a big camera).
Harry Murphy- you owe me for puking up in the bed next to me. Sorry for stranding you on Shetland.
Al Orton - you owe me for leading Harry astray
Josh Jones - you owe me for the 30 minute traffic jam I sat in at 1.30am in the big smoke after I chauffeured you right to your door all the way from Penzance.
Thanks also to Mark Rayment - hope you don't mind me using what you posted on Facebook

Destination Unknown - that was the song I heard as I turned the engine on in readiness for the long drive to Aberdeen airport. In fact it was those very two words I heard. Destination Unknown. It was scarily relevant. 

Just 6 days after returning from there, I was heading back up to Shetland for my now annual 8 day stay, hopefully timed to perfection to catch an eclectic collection of strays and waifs from America to the west and Siberia to the east.
Eight of us would be coming from all over the country to stay in our accommodation just south of Lerwick, Shetland's capital. We would be roving the island group in our minibus, pulling up at likely spots and bailing out to peer over walls, stomp around nettle beds and pish loudly at clumps of bushes - anything it would take to coax out the birds, ever hoping for that mega find.
Occasionally, if another team came up trumps, we might pile back into the bus and steam towards some rarity or other, though twitching other people's birds was restricted to ticks for team members or very special birds.





So here's a run down of proceedings
Day 1 - Saturday 30th September
With 6 of the team in place we set about hunting the south end of Mainland. It was a fairly uneventful morning and at midday I got dropped off at the top end of Boddam village. It was good weather for rarity finding. A strong south-easterly airflow for a couple of days should have brought birds from Scandinavia and today the wind had died down to make them findable.
But as I reached the bay at the bottom end I was summoned back in to the van. RED-THROATED PIPIT. Unst.
There was plenty of time to get there, even though two ferries were involved. This was by a country mile the biggest gap in Dan's list so the rest of us had no choice whether to go or not, even though in birding parlance it was a complete tart's tick.
To be fair, no one would turn their nose up at seeing another one.

We sped north to the ferry terminal over to Yell, where an otter was a nice distraction. Then it was the famous Yell rally, across the island in time to catch the next ferry to Unst. This was when things became complicated. MEGA: UPLAND SANDPIPER on Fetlar. A far better bird than the pipit, in terms of rarity, looks and character. And needed by three of the team.
At this point I should explain that from Gutcher, at the north end of Yell, there is a choice of ferries, one to Unst and one to Fetlar. Each had a bird at the end of it.

Fortunately we had time to do both. The complexity of the ferry timetable meant that we would have half an hour to see the pipit and we could still make the same ferry to Fetlar.

Skaw beach - not much lies North of here

As we pulled up by the farm buildings at Skaw, one of Britain's most northerly farms, I thought back to last year when we were lucky enough to jam into a White' s Thrush here. Birders were watching the pipit and it wasn't long before we had views.

Dan gets a tick

To be fair, they are not that spectacular and this individual was a particularly unremarkable one. Its main feature was its call, which it only deigned to utter once during our visit.

There were a Blackcap and a Lesser Whitethroat in amongst the farm buildings, just hopping around on the ground, clearly fresh in from a long journey, and I narrowly missed a Little Bunting, though I did hear it call.

Then it was back to the ferry terminal to connect with the crossing to Fetlar, which I visited last week for the first time in thirty years. I didn't expect to be back quite so soon. The Upland Sandpiper had been seen on the hillside just above a burn which we had been searching last week, but it had flown off and we were not at all hopeful of seeing it. Fetlar has a huge area of raised moorland, mostly well away from any roads and eminently suitable for hiding an Upland Sandpiper.
As we pulled the van up we could see a dozen or so birders heading up a distant hillside. They clearly weren't seeing anything but then they all stopped and raised their binoculars in the same direction. The bird, a dot, was flying ahead of them.
We scrambled, puffed and panted up the hillside where luckily the sandpiper had settled at the peak, walking around unconcernedly between the boulders. It kept disappearing into dips and gullies but we edged closer and managed to get stunning views in a stunning location.

Four of the team. I am second from the left.

It was one of the most memorable birds I have ever seen. Everything about the bird and the location felt rare.

The boat didn't leave Fetlar till after dark so we prattled around on the island a bit more before the journey, via two ferries again, back to our digs.

Three of the six team members had already had a tick and it was still the first day.

Day 2 - Sunday 1st October
The day began with a lovely Rustic Bunting at Melby. We searched the area to no avail, only for Dan and I to pick it up flying alongside the van as we headed away. It was a tick for a couple of team members, but again not for me. It was only my fourth ever though, and half an hour later we were watching my fifth ever at Dale of Walls. This area held a Great Grey Shrike too and plenty of common migrants, but it was full of birders so we decided to move on to one of my favourite hidden corners of Shetland at Ronas Voe.


Here Al found a Common Rosefinch, which was a complete tart's tick for James. The team were amassing their lists, but nothing yet for me or Al.
It's not all about the ticks though, as the next incident would prove. We pulled up alongside a farm building at Barnafield (place names in Shetland often refer to just one or two houses). Dan headed off to plow the gardens while the older members of the team loafed around the van grabbing a quick bite to eat and drink. We sent young Harry into the small iris bed below the van, as migrant birds often take first cover in these areas and a couple of speciality rares enjoy this habitat.
Trudging through iris beds is hard work. We called after Harry that if he wanted to find a Lanceolated Warbler or a Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler (aka PG Tips), this was what he needed to do. Actual chances of him finding one were actually very slim indeed. The last PG Tips on Mainland Shetland was thirteen years ago.
After failing to successfully negotiate the wire fence which ran across the small burn, Harry picked himself up again and something flew out in front of him. Song Thrush. Another few steps and a smaller bird. Grasshopper Warbler (aka Gropper). A good bird, but not ultra rare.
We all ran down and Harry carefully trod through the iris bed to secure better views. Up flew the bird again and I think we all knew it wasn't a bog standard Gropper. I had been fortunate to see my second ever PG Tips just a couple of weeks earlier and these flight views were surely the same species.
I entered the iris bed with Harry and we very slowly and gingerly inched through, hoping for views on the ground. The bird flew again, confirming the rusty rump and large dark tail. The body had the rusty yellowish tinge of a PG Tips too. Dan and James rushed up the hill to search for phone signal. The bird had flown out of the iris bed into some nearby long grass, then quickly to another spot by the fence. I could see its head poking out.
No doubt it was a Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler. Not happy in the grass, it flew down the iris bed to the base of a clump of sedge, again almost right out in the open. These birds do not perch in the open.


Then, to our amazement, it hopped up further. It afforded staggering views of such a rare and skulky bird.

Car loads of birders were soon on sight and during the course of the afternoon everybody got views of the bird. It even obligingly perched on a rock in the stream on several occasions.

By now the weather had drawn in and we were slowly getting very wet. We left the site and just had time to stop by for a Short-toed Lark which was feeding on a track. The weather was by now atrocious and we struggled to find the bird - we struggled to see anything through the van windows. A couple of us jumped out. Unfortunately I was one of them. I have never got so wet so quickly!!!
We did locate the bird, feeding right next to another birder's car, but we could hardly see anything though our rain soaked optics.
The bird was slightly bedraggled but feeding surprisingly well.

This is a Short-toed Lark enjoying the Shetland weather

And that was that. The end of day two. A major find by a team member and ticks everywhere - just not for me or Al.

Day 3 - Monday 2nd October
For the first time the team of eight came together. The wind had picked up and was all over the place. It made for very difficult birding.

The day was livened up by three plus Parrot Crossbills, part of Shetlands first 'invasion' by this species for quite some years. I have seen these birds before in Norfolk, but these particular ones seemed huge. They would be better named Cross-billed Parrots.

Day 4 - Tuesday 3rd October
We headed north-west and the inevitable happened.
The phone call from Josh.
Get back to the car. There's a Cedar Waxwing on Scilly. A mere 929 miles away according to Google Maps.


Destination Unknown!!!


We were a long way from anywhere and phone signal was not good. As we sped back towards civilisation we made urgent phone calls to bring flights forward and to book ourselves onto flights from Penzance. In between the two flights waited a 700 mile drive!
With the remnants of hurricanes Marie and Lee hitting the south west, this was a journey for which we had already made provisional plans. The logistics were quite straightforward, but it would be an epic journey.
Every single person who has been birding longer than me has seen a Cedar Waxwing, the American cousin of our winter visiting Bohemian Waxwings, which hung about with a flock of the latter in Nottingham back in the late 90s.
Furthermore I dipped a Cedar Waxwing on Scilly in June 2015. I wasn't well on the day and the sea crossing on a chartered boat was memorable for all the wrong reasons. I had a miserable day and now it was personal between Cedar Waxwing and me.
Another recent record of the species was one on Tiree, in the Hebrides, which stayed for 9 days or something like that. Why didn't we see it? Because the locals didn't get on so one suppressed the news so the other wouldn't see it. Yep. True story.

Day 5 - Wednesday 4th October
Dawn in Penzance!
The flight went smoothly and the drive from Aberdeen only took 12 hours. Kev kept me awake buy buying me a coffee at Exeter services which had so many shots in it took 20 minutes to make!
I transferred to the boat as the flight I had booked held no advantage.
I hid in the bowels of the Scillonian during the crossing and grabbed a couple of hours of very much needed sleep. We disembarked onto Hugh Town quay and transferred straight onto The Mermaid which would take us across to St Agnes.
In contrast to Shetland, the weather was stunning. Blue skies and not a breath of wind.
We were totally gripped off by messages that friends had already seen the bird. These friends had been better placed to book themselves onto early flights when news of the Cedar Waxwing broke.

Even worse, the bird had now been lost for a while. We disembarked onto the quay in St Agnes and headed off across the island to where the bird had last been seen. It didn't take long to realise that we needed to spread out and this appeared to be a needle in a haystack job.

Nice scenery, but where's the Cedar Waxwing?

I don't usually get down in the dumps at the thought of dipping a bird - it is part of the game and they'll always be another, as a friend of mine would say. But on this occasion I was taking it badly. Totally demoralised after sacking off the Shetland holiday and the long, long drive.

But then the call went up and I just ran as fast as I could towards it. There was a small traffic jam along the narrow path and by the time I got there the bird had been lost again. But at least it was still in the area and hadn't flown across to another island.

It wasn't long before the bird reappeared, perching in the tops of the pittisporum bushes. Waxwings are showy birds, perching up and calling loudly, but they can go silent and sit still for long periods. They are strong fliers too and can easily go missing.

For the next half an hour or so we enjoyed great views of the bird as it buzzed and trilled from bush to bush, occasionally perching out in the open for long periods.
The epic twitch had been worth it 😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

For the first time in several days we now slowed the pace and started to enjoy a sedate miniholiday on The Isles Of Scilly.
A turtle dove sighting on the way back to the boat was a first of the year for me - such a sad state of affairs that in these enlightened times we still can't seem to do anything to halt the decline of such a fantastic bird. We are quick to blame Mediterranean hunters, and rightly so, but I don't think that a whole countryside dosed in pesticides and herbicides can help the situation much when they arrive here from their African wintering quarters.

There was still time to pop up to the airfield to see the Isabelline Wheatear, only my third ever, but the Cliff Swallow remained unseen.

Isabelline Wheatear

Day 6 - Thursday 5th October
We decided to take a couple of days on Scilly to recuperate.
My target for the day was to catch up with the Cliff Swallow, an American bird which I last saw way back in 2000, before I could even drive myself there. This task was easier said than done as news was thin and the bird was making sporadic appearances all over the island.
I kept my ear to the ground and eventually worked out that it had been seen twice in the vicinity of the airport terminal. I could see swallows buzzing around the control tower, but another birder informed me the Cliff Swallow was not up there with them. I returned to Lower Moors to look for other birds but I had a nagging feeling about those swallows. In the end I headed up to the airfield, only to bump into an old couple I had spoken to earlier who told me the bird had been flying around them for the last half hour. Shame they didn't let anybody else know!
Anyway, it wasn't there any more.
I stuck it out at the airport though and it wasn't too long before the Cliff Swallow wheeled into view, at one point flying just a few feet away from me.

I alerted my fiends who were not too far away. A coffee and a celebratory very large slice of cake in the airport café before the Cliff Swallow reappeared for a longer period. I was glad that everybody got to see it.
We were now properly in chill mode and we went down into the sallows of Lower Moors where a Spotted Crake had occasionally been showing very well. There was a small crowd assembled when we arrived, but the bird had not been playing ball. We waited quite a while until everybody started drifting away.
I had a feeling that this would be the cue for it to show again and, when numbers shrunk to about six people, out it came, feeding right in front of us. I managed to call one of my mates back to see it.

My mate's camera settings were dodgy,

giving the appearance of grey hair on my head.

He took this picture of me as I was watching the bird. I celebrated a good day by having burger and chips as a starter in the pub! Well, I am a growing young lad 😁. I have to admit I struggled with the main and had to leave a few chips. All was washed down with a few pints of the local tipple.


Day 7 - Friday 6th October
This was to be our final day on the islands. This afternoon (subject to short notice change) we planned to be off on the ferry and back home after a most eventful autumn birding break.
We dropped our bags in left luggage by the quay and took a very leisurely stroll around the island. It was tee-shirt weather.

First stop was a dragonfly twitch - a Vagrant Emperor from North Africa. I don't do dragonflies, but it would be rude not to. Besides, if I ever do start a list, I would regret not seeing this one.

Vague rant Emperor

After that we checked a few sites, coincidentally those with benches, the occasional one with a coffee shop too. The best we found was a Yellow-browed Warbler, nowhere near so numerous on Scilly as they were on Shetland.
Then it was off on the boat and back to Penzance for a gorgeous sunset.

I drove Dan back to his car at Lands End airport and then started the drive back to The Fens, via London to drop Josh off. Another 400 mile drive, but nothing compared to that of three nights previous.
It was somewhat of a shock to the system to be back in the big smoke, stuck in a traffic jam at 1.30 in the morning. I'm so glad I escaped that lifestyle. Never again. Here in The Fens, no one really goes out in the dark.