Autumnal gems

Back off to sea in a few days so just enough time to undertake a final twitch and intense birding session  before bag packing and airport mayhem. First stop was the Frankfield loch in Stepps, Glasgow. I arrived at 08:40ish and having eventually found somewhere to park I walked the short distance to the loch and started working through the ducks. Some 10 minutes later I was on the drake blue-winged teal- a smashing duck looking much nicer than I had expected after its 'eclipse' phase. The white crescent was particularly neat and striking and the bird was feeding within a nice flock of teal and a few shoveler which provided good comparisons. A group of 12 snipe sat out in the open were also worthy of scoping as they jostled for a position on a length of semi-submerged planking.

Next stop, St. Abbs in the borders- I really wanted to see a potential lifer in the shape of the Sardinian warbler that had been frequenting the scrub at the north end of the Mire loch. I was not disappointed- after 2.5 hours of carefully watching the scrub, the bird eventually popped out allowing good views for 30 seconds or so- much to the obvious relief of the 20 or so birders that had been waiting - for the most part, very patiently. Of course as is the usual theme at any twitch these days some birders exhibited very little field craft sense- talking loudly, clattering tripods, walking in front of the gathered crowd etc. Probably best not to dwell on the bad manners of a few for too long! On the upside I met some really nice, pleasant birders at the site, who readily swapped info. and added to the overall enjoyment of the occasion.

Having enjoyed the incredibly handsome sard. I spent the rest of the time birding the area- a really nice site to look for migrants and I enjoyed a couple of yellow-browed warblers, a spotted flycatcher, two redstarts and a number of willow warblers and chiffchaffs. I saw a ybw fly briefly between the tops of the trees and in the strong sunlight I thought I had a glimpse of a yellow rump- I immediately thought of  Pallas's warbler but I wasn't sure and could not relocate the bird so kept quiet about that-damn! I need a Pallas's too!

Following a night in b n b I headed off for the 300 mile drive back to Ullapool- a long drive but worth every mile. Time to pack my seabag..........

Brown shrike surprise!

Since my return from offshore Ireland I seem to have done an awful lot of local patch birding with very little reward. A merlin and a white-tailed eagle being the only birds of note. No migrants other than mipits, pied wags. a few dunlin and sanderling and the occasional wheatear. On the plus side I have put together 20+ BTO bird track 'complete lists' and also submitted a fair few 'casual records' so it does not feel that my time in the field has been completely wasted. My much anticipated 'west coast' pelagic was a big disappointment with a real shortage of birds and aside from a dozen or so storm petrels, a single sooty shearwater and a single arctic skua were the only birds of note. Eventually my frustration level peaked and I had to twitch a bird! 

First off was a 150 mile drive down to Arisaig to try and catch up with the American golden plover that had been found a few days before my visit. Arriving on site, I was a little surprised to find that there were no other birders present and more worryingly there was no golden plover flock in the field next to Traigh golf course. After 15 minutes or so, I heard a single golden plover calling as it flew in to the field- a little bit of encouragement at least! Two hours later, after working the whole area, I was just getting ready to admit another dip when I noticed a dark bird quite far away from the road and rather far up the incline- this was the AGP feeding in the grass with another golden plover, half a dozen greylags and a few wood pigeons. I got the scope on the bird and enjoyed it for sometime before dashing off to get the ferry over to the Isle of Skye- the previous day a number of Sabine's gulls had been seen in Broadford bay and this was another species I really wanted to see. Unfortunately I did not connect with any but did get good views of a very confiding knot.

American golden plover

American G.P. with European cousin

knot- Broadford bay, Isle of Skye

Having studied the weather forecasts intently over the last week or so I decided to have a weekends birding in Aberdeenshire with fellow birder Marcus (ebirder) Conway. Everything looked pretty good  for finding our own 'sibes'. We left Inverness at 05:30 and headed over to the Forvie NNR/Collieston area- a favourite birding area of ours. I picked up a couple of tawny owls en-route- sat on fence posts at the road side and with increasing daylight a few buzzards, pheasants and wood pigeons provided some entertainment during the drive. Arriving onsite we heard but could not see a barred warbler in deep cover- encouraging though! We also watched a chiffchaff briefly and felt confident as a few migrants were obviously about. 10 minutes later Marcus was quickly onto a yellow-browed warbler in the tall conifer next to the church. Shortly afterwards we had good views of a lesser whitethroat- another tidy bird. We met a couple of 'local birders' and after a brief chat about what was about we went our separate  ways -we headed for the coastal bushes via Forvie and they headed off to work the 'gulley'. Forvie was dead but we had bonus birds of pom. and arctic skua and sandwich tern from the headland. Back in Collieston we saw another yellow-browed warbler in the willows by the old hotel then heard a 3rd calling from a thick hedge. Shortly afterwards we met the 'locals' again as they were 'looking' for a Brown shrike that they had found earlier in the 'gulley'. The bird was apparently very skulky and flighty and was proving very difficult to get onto. We joined forces and after another 90 minutes or so during which time we had brief flight views, the bird was eventually pinned down to a hedge at the back of some cottages. We had good views through the scope and also on Marcus's 'live view' camera. We watched this newly arrived mega catching insects and even disgorge a pellet. By now the news was out and frantic birders were turning up to twitch the bird. The whole scene quickly started to feel a tad  manic and as we had had good views of the now 'very elusive' shrike we headed off in search of some more of our 'own birds'. We didn't find anything to match the mega but the following day we found another couple of yellow-browed warblers- at Cruden bay and Whinneyfold gulley. A brambling was a nice bonus bird. All in all we had a great weekends birding looking for migrants and ending up with a bonus mega as well! 

Black country blues

Thanks to a 3 hour Aer Lingus flight delay in Cork I missed my connecting flight home so have to spend a night in a rather seedy Birmingham airport hotel......won't mention the name in case they take legal action but the initials are H.I. - can't believe I had to wait in my room for 4 hours while they sorted out a problem with the electronic door key- eventually I demanded a different room! Anyway, a chance to post some final snapshots from my Porcupine sea bight survey ( and have a beer or three!). Hopefully I will make it home tomorrow and get back to some much needed local patch birding.

long-finned pilot whales 

one of my last recorded Cory's- simply stunning!

a delicately dancing great shearwater

a nice comparison- fulmar & great shear

common dolphin- underwater shot!

Shear delight

After a few days of fog and light, variable winds, the forecast of a reasonable blow with a significant westerly element raised my pulse rate and guaranteed that I was on watch early the following morning. I was not disappointed, as two great shearwaters flew 100 metres or so off the port bow as I gathered my waterproofs, hat, notebook and binoculars from the bridge! From then on and over the last three days I have enjoyed three figure counts of great shearwaters, intermingled with scores of Cory's! Some birders would say that when you have seen one large shear you have seen them all, but I disagree, find them totally captivating and have no problem watching them shear and glide over the swell and waves for hours on end. Surprisingly, and contrary to the large numbers of sooty shearwaters reported from Irish sea-watching sites, I have only seen one in the last 3 days- maybe they hug the Irish coast more as they drift SE? I also had the bonus of seeing flocks of Sabines' gulls- a group of 3 and a group of five. Unfortunately being on a 92 metre vessel, with a GRT of over 9000 tonnes means that many birds are rather ship-shy, occasionally however, a large shear made a relatively close pass, allowing me to try for a couple of shots. Good numbers of Arctic and 'comic' terns have also been seen flying south and an additional grey phalarope and a turnstone have been the only other obvious passage birds. I suppose we should see some significant skua passage before too long, but with the exception of a solo, spoon-laden pom and a few locally foraging bonxies they have yet to make an appearance. Happy days!

great shearwater- close pass at last!

Add caption

Cory's - unusually close in!

brilliant birds!

Bad light stops play

Day three of rain and rolling fog banks with severely reduced visibility has stopped all seabird observations with the exception of a close pass by a storm petrel. Not a gannet or fulmar in sight. Heres a few snaps I took earlier. (The whimbrel flew overhead heading south before the weather turned)

whimbrel on migration

great shearwater

manx shearwater

manx & great shearwater

Barolo shearwater!

It must be an age thing in that I am having increasing trouble with my 'T's- technology and taxonomy! I have a simple mobile phone- I dare not get a 'smart' phone as I have no idea what 3G or 4G is, I have a HD capable TV but I have no idea how to program it to get HD channels, my microwave is programmable but I just reheat for 'x' number of minutes and my modest car has a computer so advanced it has it's very own user manual. Then there is taxonomy- I used to know what a sub-alpine warbler was- now is it eastern or western?, I thought I could I/D a stonechat but now I have to be aware of the siberian variety, same for a rock pipit as apparently I now need to find the scandinavian variety. Then of course we have the good old chestnuts of the redpoll and wagtail complexes- enough to give any average birder grey hair. I digress, but there is a point- yesterday I chanced upon a wonderful seabird- a mega in fact!- a cute small shearwater that for decades I would have immediately called a 'Little shearwater' Somewhere along the line this then became a Macaronesian shearwater (or is it Macronesian?- I seem to come across both spelling forms!). Apparently this wonderful seabird is now known as a Barolo shearwater! (as an aside does anyone know how to pronounce that?- is it bah as in the noise sheep make or bar as in propping one up with a pint!!) Anyway a great find no matter what it is called. I observed the bird for 1.5-2 minutes at a range of approx. 300-350 metres- not ideal and certainly no opportunity for a photo. but the bird was strikingly different to the manx shearwater that it was associating with- smaller by 20-25%, the same two-tone coloration- jet black above, snow white below, very rapid wingbeats producing weak, fluttering flight on obviously shorter, rounder wings, a dark band to the underwing trailing edge, and occasionally a strange 'head-up' posture. Unfortunately I could not make out an obvious pale face and dark eye- but hey I'm more than happy with my ID. I'm left with mixed emotions- absolutely thrilled to have had the privilege of chancing upon a mega rarity, but this is tinged with a hint of melancholy- no phone calls or text messages to send to fellow birders to twitch it and share the delight. Of course I'm now left to decide whether or not to submit my description to the IRBC (Irish rare bird committee). On the one hand I know this sighting will inevitably be clouded in the 'single observer' issues conundrum, but on the other I think that for a bird of this rarity status it really ought to go into the system- purely for the birds scientific merit. Right that's it- I have convinced myself that I really should submit so I have to go and write and email my description. Good fun this birding! 

The Porcupine Seabight

The Porcupine Seabight is an interesting oceanographic feature located a hundred or so nautical miles  WSW off the southern coast of Ireland. It is a large depression where the water rapidly deepens and leads out to the abyssal depths of the North Atlantic. The strong ocean currents form nice areas of nutrient-rich upwelling so there is often an abundance of marine life- plankton, shoals of pelagic fish including albacore and yellow-fin tuna, cetaceans and seabirds- at least that is what it said in the tourist brochure! In all honesty there have been good numbers of fin whales- sometimes 5 or 6 in a day, the fishing fleets of Ireland and Spain are actively fishing for tuna, but seabirds have been rather scarce. Admittedly I see gannets and fulmars every day but numbers are low. A few lesser black-backed gulls have followed the survey vessel on occasion and I have had good days where I have seen four species of shearwater- Great, Corys, Sooty and Manx- but again numbers have been disappointing. I have also see a few bonxies, 2 Sabines gulls- both magnificent adults in summer plumage a few storm petrels and 1 wilson's petrel- I can't complain but I hope that numbers increase over the coming weeks! Unfortunately I have struggled with poor light and distant birds so taking photographs has been challenging, although this morning a great shearwater came within 40 metres of the bow, allowing me to rattle off a few snaps. Hopefully the sunshine and a nice Fea's or Bulwer's petrel are not too far away! 

great shearwater

great shearwater

nice flock of manx shearwaters

manx shearwaters- incredible how the light affects the plumage tones!

Great, Cory's and Wilson's- when lifers don't count! :(

Joined my survey vessel yesterday in a nice little port in the SW of Ireland. We steamed down the river Shannon, then overnight on the open sea. This morning I awoke over the Porcupine sea bight WSW of Mizen head in about 1600 metres of water. I spent the morning working and getting organised and then spent 3 hours on watch this afternoon. It was very quiet aside from a few gannets and fulmars and a solitary great skua and a fly-by turnstone. The sea was choppy but not unduly so, however the watch was made difficult by intermittent heavy rain and rolling damp fog banks that left water droplets on everything. The light was dull and everything had a soggy feel to it and as there was not much about I didn't bother taking the camera out onto the deck- then things changed for the good with 4 great shearwaters, a Cory's shearwater and a Wilson's petrel flying past the bow of the vessel in quick succession! Although I have seen thousands of both of these shearwater species and scores of Wilson's I have not seen any of these 3 species in British waters and so all 3 are needed for my 'British list'! Of course having checked my position on the nautical charts I confirmed my worst fears in that I am working in the Irish sector- by a significant margin! The moral of the tale is always, always have the camera ready and also too consider starting a British and Irish life list! The camera (in a plastic bag) will be on deck for the rest of the voyage!