May 15, 2006
White-throated Sparrow
Was busy being a domestic goddess (well, hoovering anyway) on Saturday morning when P interrupted me with the phone - DC had kindly called to let me know there was a White-throated Sparrow at Sumburgh Farm. He's an absolute gem for letting me know when good stuff arrives, and has already provided me with one new bird this year, the splendid Hooded Merganser. This sparrow was not a new species for me, as I'd seen the Lincolnshire bird in '92, but given the circumstances, this was as good as a lifer.
Lincolnshire, way back then - an overnight drive in an asthmatic Mini Metro with two virtual strangers, with a constant barrage of snarling techno on the pathetic tinny stereo. A grey dawn found us picking our way through a dense wood and cabbage field ensemble, in driving rain, water pouring off the branches and mud engulfing my feeble and inadequate trainers. A couple of freezing and miserable hours later we got shite views of a waterlogged White-throated Sparrow huddled in a hawthorn bush.
Shetland, now - after taking E swimming in town, we drove down to Sumburgh, ate lunch up at Sumburgh Head, and then drifted back down the headland to the farm. HH arrived at the same time, and as we walked to where he'd been photographing the bird earlier in the day, we were joined by RR and JR. JR I'd not seen for some 12 years since my last stay on North Ron, so it'd been a while. Obligingly, the White-throated Sparrow appeared at the foot of a drystone wall just in front of us, and fed actively in the bright sunlight. An absolutely stunning looking bird, and very different circumstance to my first. Strikingly long-tailed, with proportions reminiscent of a Bearded Tit, it even did that North American sparrow thing of back-shuffling as it foraged.
Some more excellent photos of this bird available on Hugh Harrop's website >here<
Thanks once again to DC for letting me know about this - not quite a lifer, but frankly an honourary one. The Lincs ghost is laid to rest.
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Today's North Atlantic chart
An Icelandic Birding Diary (Iceland, funnily enough)
Nature in Shetland website - all the up-to-date bird, insect, cetacean etc news for Shetland, plus photos... indispensable.
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May 11, 2006
I send per post my Nightingale...
Curses. Shetland got off to a roistering start to the spring over the past few days, starting with a smattering of Subalpine Warblers, picking up pace with a Collared Flycatcher, and then finishing in a shuddering crescendo with a Scops Owl.
I meanwhile spent most of the critical 48 hours in bed with the mother and father of all colds. The weather outside was easily the nicest and sunniest Shetland had seen all year (or all of last year for that matter), thus making my absence from work seem highly suspect to those of a mistrusting or suspicious nature. You can rest assured though – had I really been skiving, I’d have been off like a shot for the Collared Flycatcher, and given it was only a mile or so from the ferry terminal I go into every day, the owl as well. (Seeing the Morwenstow bird in ’95 makes missing this individual a little easier).
As it was, I stayed at home snuffling and generally feeling like shit. And only tried for either of these two this morning on my way back to work. And for once my steadfast belief that I’m a lucky birder went completely tits up – the Scops Owl was nowhere to be seen at Swining (I hate this place – far too much impenetrable cover. No wonder it attracts retiring arboreal species like Scops Owls. Or White’s Thrush. Which I also didn’t see).
And then to Brow Marsh in the south mainland for the flycatcher. The gen had it on ‘the fence going into the marsh’. On arrival, only two fences to be seen in the entire marsh, and both conspicuously flycatcherless. Bugger. Gave it a while, but absolutely sod all happened. So I came into work, and hoped that JL would do me a big favour and find the flycatcher with his eagle-sharp eyes and unparalleled rarity finding ability. (Though I did make the precaution of texting him to tell him there was no sign of it in case he didn’t want to waste his time). Later, the cryptic but descriptive reply came by text from the south mainland - ‘4call’.
Good job JL was on form yesterday – my miserable snotty breakfast was enlivened no end by BM arriving with a lifer for JL – a bird he’d found the day before, but seen all too fleetingly to pin down definitively – a nightingale sp. I’ve only seen 2 sprossers, so Thrush would have been a tonic for me. Alas, ‘only’ a Common Nightingale. Practically as rare up here as Thrush, so a good patch tick – and to put this in perspective, JL had found several Thrush Nightingales before finding this, his first Common… Shetland birding at its best.
So from a fall of BB rarities in the islands, what have I got to show for it? A species which I used to be able to hear singing from the back garden in the south-west. And a really sore snout from 48 hours of nose-blowing.
Cheers, Coleridge for this.
In stale blank verse a subject stale
I send per post my Nightingale;
And like an honest bard, dear Wordsworth,
You'll tell me what you think, my Bird's worth.
My own opinion's briefly this--
His bill he opens not amiss;
And when he has sung a stave or so,
His breast, & some small space below,
So throbs & swells, that you might swear
No vulgar music's working there.
So far, so good; but then, 'od rot him!
There's something falls off at his bottom.
Yet, sure, no wonder it should breed,
That my Bird's Tail's a tail indeed
And makes its own inglorious harmony
Ćolio crepitű, non carmine.
Follow the Weather Starling for a forecast, or see Shetland live on the NAFC webcam…
Today's North Atlantic chart
An Icelandic Birding Diary (Iceland, funnily enough)
Nature in Shetland website - all the up-to-date bird, insect, cetacean etc news for Shetland, plus photos... indispensable.>>
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May 05, 2006
Sammy the Black-winged Stilt tribute
A shameless piece of link-pilfering, but this is so touching, so poignant... it deserves all the publicity it can get. Courtesy of Tom at Skills Bills, a heart-rending tear-jerking tribute to the plastic Black-winged Stilt that was the bedrock of so many yearlists from 1995 until last year.
http://media.putfile.com/Tribute-to-Sammy
So how does one go about nominating something for the Cannes Film Festival? There's surely a category for Best Foreign (Vagrant) Film?
Follow the Weather Starling for a forecast, or see Shetland live on the NAFC webcam…
Today's North Atlantic chart
An Icelandic Birding Diary (Iceland, funnily enough)
Nature in Shetland website - all the up-to-date bird, insect, cetacean etc news for Shetland, plus photos... indispensable.>>
Come back soon!
May 02, 2006
See the sites
A couple of other birding websites that I’ve been meaning to flag up here for ages. In no particular order (actually, that’s a great big lie with knobs on. The first one comes first because I’ve met the man himself, and he’s a thoroughly Good Egg, which seems like as good a reason as any to give him first crack of the whip. Oooer.)
Skills Bills is Tom McKinney’s website, and is kind of Irvine Welsh meets Birdwatching magazine. In a good way. With elements of William Burroughs, Spike Milligan and Gordon Ramsey thrown in. I think I’m trying to say that Tom swears a lot, and is funnier than Vic Reeves in his meat product phase. He also plays the banjo or some such, and regularly gives his instrument good fingering. Ho ho.
And then there’s Punkbirder – a collective from Norfolk, that’s part a latter day Not BB (kidlisters, this was an ‘underground’ magazine that poked fun at Serious Birders in the late 80’s / early 90’s. About the same time as the murrelet and that nuthatch that you’ll never unblock), and part a dead good website all about birding in Norfolk and further afield generally. And misuse of wildlife for birding purposes – Adder focus aid anyone… Vole lens-cleaner… auk scope case? You know you want to.
Follow the Weather Starling for a forecast, or see Shetland live on the NAFC webcam…
Today's North Atlantic chart
An Icelandic Birding Diary (Iceland, funnily enough)
Nature in Shetland website - all the up-to-date bird, insect, cetacean etc news for Shetland, plus photos... indispensable.>>
Come back soon!