September 29, 2004
Bad photographer...
Am certainly not going to win prizes for bird photography in the near future... It'd help if I kept the scope in the car, as let's face it, digiscoping without the scope is just digi (and given the quality of the photos I'm managing, the technical term should surely be dingyscroting).
Exhibit a: the Citrine Wagtail - so out of focus and wobbly it'd do justice to many a mystery bird competition. This was milliseconds before it buggered off. Still, at least it gives a flavour of the family, if not the specific species!
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September 28, 2004
Brown Shrike gallery
Okay, promise this is the last time I'll harp on about this bird (hmm, remind me of that in the dead of winter when there's nothing to do but dwell on the glories of the autumn...), but I've scanned some more of JL's excellent photos, so here they are...
All credit to JL for the above excellent piccies. And for finding the bird in the first place. Given how good this was, God only knows what the mystery locustella-thingy was... I reckon Gray's Gropper has just slipped through the net!!
Finally, a couple of excellent in the field shots are viewable here.
September 27, 2004
Brown Shrike II
Returned to the island on Saturday morning to be met by JL (shrike-finder extraordinaire) to put me straight onto the 1st winter Citrine Wagtail. Had close but all too brief views of it perched on a nearby fence before the wretched little sod took flight and buggered off high to the north over some rooftops and out of sight.
The Brown Shrike has been seen on and off all week despite virtually constant high winds and heavy rain, and there were a few hardy and hopeful souls searching for it over the weekend. Frankly there was too much to do at home to go looking for it, but JL dropped over his in the hand photos (see below) to help recreate that fabulous warm glow that goes with being in-at-the-kill on any rarity, let alone such a stunner as this.
Am still kicking self that the Coolpix's battery was dead... let that be a lesson to get at least one other battery and always keep one charged. Talk about learning the hard way. Anyhow, JL's photos are dead good, so no harm done.
Finally, a text message received from one of the twitchers who came up from England for this bird:
"Thanks for the shrike - it was a fucking cracker!"
Says it all, really.
September 20, 2004
Brown Shrike!!
Hmm. Can't really tell you just how exciting today has been... but will try.
Yesterday's crappy views of Red-backed Shrike weren't very revealing. JL got better views today, and texted me that he thought it was an Isabelline or even a Brown... I hurried back to the island, to find JL had managed to walk it into the heligoland.
I went round to the trapping box to see... an adult Brown Shrike looking up at me through the glass!
I took it out and between us we carefully bagged it (I held a Brown Shrike!!), then took it to B's to be processed and to prove we weren't hallucinating. Sure enough, it's the real deal. And my bloody camera wasn't charged, so no piccies to accompany this sensational news. Sorry!
Frontiers of misidentification (i)
(An occasional series)
Thoroughly crappy weekend for birding - a nice strong south-easterly on Friday was followed by gale force south-westerlies on Saturday and Sunday. Which meant that when JL found what he thought might be a locustella in the plantation, it was absolutely impossible to even get close to. Though to be fair, calling it a locustella might be a leap of faith anyway, as it flushed high and far every time, unlike say a gropper, lancey or pg tips.
Overall impressions were of a drab brown, long-tailed warbler, that called "pet" in flight. Savi's or River maybe? Can be certain it'll be something good, as am away to the Western Isles tonight until Saturday, and sod's law demands a first for the island at the very least in my absence. Can rely on JL to let me know!
Tried desperately to find it in hopeless conditions yesterday evening, slightly encouraged by Goldcrest and Red-backed Shrike new in on the island. JL got a phone call to say someone had a black Coot-like bird in front of their house. We decided to give it a try, and hastened down the island in torrential rain and failing light. Arriving at the house, we found the family waiting outside holding a carrier bag (thoughts running through head - okay, they've caught it, ergo it must be absolutely knackered, meaning it's flown a very long way to get here, we've just had 48 hours of screaming south-westerlies, hurricane Ivan... this is going to be a moribund American Purple Gallinule...)
The bag opens. Inside...
...a small, bedraggled red hen.
Oh.
September 13, 2004
Wood you ever?
Inspired by the Yellow-breasted Bunting fall further north, spent 3 hours away from renovation-work on Saturday out birding with JL. Despite our usual boundless optimism and a nice brisk south-easterly, migrants were few and far between - we struggled to a grand total of 9 Willow Warblers, a pair of Whinchat, and a frustrating flight view of a warbler that lobbed over the roof of a nearby house never to be seen again, leaving a fleeting impression of silvery-white underparts...
This in the local warbler version of the Bermuda triangle - where warblers vanish without trace. JL had a flight view of a wing-barred phyllosc in August that did just that, and despite searching, Saturday's warbler followed suit.
Bonelli's? The usual fanciful fantasising! But the reality was that our sights had dropped from Yellow-breasted Bunting, to Rose-coloured Starling, to Bluethroat, and now... hell, those Whinchats were nice, weren't they?
JL drove us back to my end of the island, commenting that it was down to my patch to pull us out a good one to end the day. I cynically muttered something to the tune of "and not a bloody Sedge Warbler", but secretly hoped that the light showers that were passing through might have forced something interesting to earth. We started to drive the plantation, and immediately flushed a warbler from a spruce - JL straight onto it "Wood Warbler!".
Lovely! Just the best views you could ask for, not zooming around a beech wood canopy, instead sitting out in the open on fence wires. Bright lemony yellow and green, and a beautiful silvery white underside. Just like the bird at the other end of the island...
Rounded the day off with another Whinchat (also in the plantation), and then gave up to go back to painting the outside of the house.
September 06, 2004
Purple Martin ha bloody ha
Life is so much less stressful now I look for my own rares more than I check my my pager (this process being hastened by the Bad Lurcher irretrievably chewing up said pager in January). So there's a Great Knot somewhere in north England? Big deal. Mongolus Lesser Sandplover? Yeah yeah, big deal, seen one, yawn... Yellow-breasted Buntings on Unst? Okay, am feeling a slight sense of an itch I could scratch, but only so far as wanting to redouble my efforts to find my own at home, and dream about planting a nice patch of oats next year. But otherwise... who cares?!
Purple Martin on the Western Isles? >> shudder << Found that on my desktop this morning (incidentally, why would anyone bother with paying Rare Bird Alert for the bird news when they kindly publish it for free as a teaser online down to county level, which is enough to see whether further investigation is needed? Just a thought...). Anyway, Purple Martin. Hmm.
There was a time when I'd have done a sicky for that, and been heading straight there from the south. No longer. But I do feel a bit yearnsome for it! But hey, if there then why not here? Went out last night to pick mushrooms (yum) and found three Swifts on the south-east cliffs feeding in the dusk. So near and yet so very, very far!
September 03, 2004
South easterlies
Jl has left the island for the weekend, and the wind is howling out of the south-east. Crap for the fishing, but hopefully good for birding... There seem to be Citrine Wags and Booted Warblers in Ireland, but not here... how can this be?! At least with JL away sod's law dictates that something good ought to be found on the island, if only so he misses it. Here's hoping.
Recent waders at the meadows haven't been bettered since, best bird on the island being a bastard grotfinch (common rosefinch to you). Have been out every morning before work this week, and managed a few Willow Wblrs, a Pied Fly, and a handful of White Wags. Just not good enough.