Tex-Az Day One

Killdeer – one of only three species seen on Day One of our Tex-Az adventure – photo from GABRAT 1

Yesterday was a transit day, and boy what a day! We left Cromer at 07.00 and eventually arrived at our motel in Winnie, Texas, at 22.30 – including a six hour time difference. That meant we were on the go for 211/2 hours – no wonder we were knackered. The only birds which made it on to the list were Purple Martin and Killdeer as we taxied to the stand at Houston and a Rock Dove on the terminal buildings.

Tex-Az – Day Zero

A multitude of swallows – Cliff, Tree & Rough-winged, resting on the road to High Island – having just flown across the Gulf of Mexico (America) – migration in action!

Today is our last in Norfolk before we head for Heathrow in the morning and our flight to Houston, at the start of another Great American Birding RoAd Trip (GABRAT IV). This trip is to celebrate Neil’s big birthday (three score years and ten) and consists of a month-long clockwise itinerary around the Gulf of Mexico (America), along the Rio Grande – through New Mexico – to south-east Arizona and then back west through the Texas Highlands to Houston. We’ve done similar trips a couple of times before but this is Neil & Nicola’s introduction to the amazing spectacle that is the Americas Spring migration! I’m thinking 350 for the trip is an achievable target? It’ll be dark when we arrive at our first destination of Winnie so I doubt there’ll be any birding news to report for Day 1 – but we’ll see.

Orchard Oriole – another early target

Arran adventure

Looking across Brodick Bay to Goat Fell, Isle of Arran

We spent the half-term week with Josh, Al and the girls on the Isle of Arran – they’re planning to relocate to the island in the coming months. As you might expect for mid-February the weather was mixed, with mainly strong winds and heavy showers (a bit of snow on the tops) but we did get the odd sunny spell.

As a teenager and then later, when Mum and Dad lived on Benbecular, I’ve visited a good number of the Scottish islands but never Arran, which is often described as ‘Scotland in miniature’. The seventh largest of the Scottish islands, it cover 167 sq miles, has a perimeter road of approx 90k and reaches the highest point at Goat Fell of 2,867 feet. There are just under 5000 residents but being close to the Scottish mainland, with generally a good ferry service, receives over half a million visitors annually.

Before I went I checked out Arran Birding and made contact with local birder Jim, who was very welcoming and helpful. We spent the week sight-seeing, house hunting, entertaining our grand-daughters .. and birding! Over the five full days we were actually on the island we managed to find 70 species which, in Jim’s words, ‘.. you have done exceptionally well for a first visit in February.’  Here are a few of our highlights:

First morning exploring the beach in Lamlash – a surprise Whooper Swan
There was a reasonable assortment of shorebirds immediately opposite our Airbnb – including Curlew
Another early surprise was Little Egret – which have arrived on Arran in recent years but spread quickly
We saw a good variety of ducks – Red-breasted Merganser being the most common
Best of the wildfowl were five Greenland White-fronts which we found at Shiskine
Other wildlife highlights included this Otter, watched whilst we ate our sandwiches in the golf club car park
There were plenty of gulls to scrutinise – this Common Gull was wearing a non-standard colour-ring – Jim is helping to track it down
Arran is home to some very special birds – including Golden Eagle. We eventually found a pair in the northern ‘highlands’
Out with the family, including brother Bryan, on Sannox beach, with Goat Fell in the background

Assuming their house sale / purchase goes through OK, doubtless we’ll be spending more time on the lovely island of Arran in the future.

Shetland scoter surprise

White-winged Scoter, Wadbister Voe – discovered hours before we were due to board the boat. Main photo is mine – inset courtesy of the finders

Our birding week on Shetland was gradually grinding to a halt by Friday – our last day on the islands before catching the overnight ferry to Aberdeen. The winds continued to come from the north and there were persistent pulses of heavy rain. We started the day back on Mossy Hill – no sign of the Lapland Bunting but we did find a few Snow Bunting. A tour of the western side of Mainland produced very little, except a nice coffee and cake stop at The Cornerstone cafe in Scalloway. We were heading towards Lerwick for an afternoon of sight-seeing when the mega alert sounded – ‘White-winged Scoter – Wadbister Voe’! We were only just down the road so it would have been rude not to go for it. We pulled up on the quayside and started scanning the Eider flock. A solitary scoter was occasionally visible as it worked its way through the ribbon of birds. This was the bird – apparently present for the past two weeks, but (understandably) identified as a Velvet Scoter. It took closer views and a good deal of experience by AR & LMCJ to re-make it into the much rarer American version. We boarded the boat very happy birders, after a week of some excellent birds, a list of 120 species and a much hoped for ‘lifer’! We will be back.

Blue hands, Bluethroat, Blue Tit

Arguably the best bird of the day was this Bluethroat at Channerwick Bay

The temperature here in Shetland has gone steadily down during the week. Yesterday it was a high of 6 deg but, with the wind chill, it felt like little above freezing. Our final stop in the afternoon, on top of Mossy Hill, was baltic – I wished I’d have worn my gloves. The day started at our local hot spot in Hoswick village. In the garden below the carpark there was a nice Siberian Chiffchaff and an unusually pale Lesser Whitethroat. Turns out that it was probably of the blythii race. Our next stop, at Channerwick Bay, arguably produced the best bird of the day – a well-marked Bluethroat. We managed to pick up a couple more trip ticks during the day and were just relaxing with a cuppa when a message came out about a Cattle Egret – just down the road at Sandwick. We just managed to catch up with it in the failing evening light. Not a bad day – all things considered. But, without fully realising it, the real star of the show was a Blue Tit which I’d spotted earlier in the day flying out of cover from Swinister Burn and over the nearby gardens. We put the message out on the ‘Common birds’ WhatsApp but that was later upgraded to ‘scarce’ and the bird drew a steady trickle of observers – being seen again three hours later.

This pale Lesser Whitethroat was tentatively assigned to the race blythii
Lapland Bunting on Mossy Hill – gave me blue hands in the process

Night bird mix up

Nightjar at Burravoe – nice but not quite the bird we were hoping for

The weather’s been challenging over the past couple of days and, as a consequence, so has the birding. With winds from the north gusting at 50mph only the most sheltered spots have produced any birds. We managed to catch up with a few waders and wildfowl yesterday at various locations in the south of Mainland and finished the day, back on our ‘home patch’, with another Red-breasted Flycatcher. Today began with a fairly leisurely start until news broke of a Pallas’s Leaf Warbler at a remote location in the north of the island. We arrived, got out of the car, and spoke to one of the birders already on site. The bird was apparently on a bit of a circuit but hadn’t been seen for twenty minutes. Within a few minutes the ‘shout’ went up and the ‘seven striped sprite’ was seen feeding low down in a Hawthorn. We were just deciding where to go next when another message announced ‘Common Nighthawk flushed from the roadside’ in Burravoe on the next island of Yell – a mega. We headed to the ferry terminal but where frustrated by not being able to book a slot on the next boat, and apparently there were no places coming back at all! Our hopes seemed dashed until Neil managed to get through on the phone – ‘wait in the unbooked lane and you’ll get on’ said the helpful lady and she booked us back on the 4.55 boat. We were off. A short drive to the village followed by a scramble to park and we joined the fifty or so birders looking aimlessly around the surrounding fields. The bird had originally been flushed from the road, then lost to view over the nearby houses. Eventually, in response to another message, the crowd surged up the hill, only to be greeted by the news that the bird was in fact a European Nightjar! A nice bird but not quite the one we’d been hoping for.

Common Nighthawk – Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas

Warbler fest

Arctic Warbler – last of a handful of scarce and rare warblers during the day

Weather over night wasn’t as bad as the forecast but still it was overcast and windy when we set off birding after breakfast. The willows in a Hoswick garden provide our first scarce warbler of the day – first picked up on call then later seen sheltering in a bush – Siberian Chiffchaff. We birded a couple of spots before our coffee stop in Lerwick. After, whilst watching the Olive-backed Pipit at Kergord Wood, a message came through of a Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler (affectionately known to birders as ‘PG tips’) near Garth cemetery. A line of expectant birders were gathered along the edge of an iris bed when we arrived and it wasn’t long before the bird was flushed, doing several circuits in front of the admiring crowd before dropping back into cover. I managed a brief view of it on the deck followed by more fly-bys before we left it in peace. An hour of ‘R&R’ back at our accommodation and then we were out again, birding our local hot-spots around the village. The Snow Bunting performed well in the car-park of the Orca Inn, occasionally flying up into the trees – I’ve never seen them do that before. Whilst enjoying these antics I noticed a bird fly into the tops of a sycamore. It turned out to be the lovely Wood Warbler. Also in the nearby bushes at least one Yellow-browed Warbler. Then our final ‘twitch’ of the day – another message announcing an Arctic Warbler in the in copse at Burn of Njugalswater. A superb end to our warbler fest day.

Wood Warbler at Orca Inn – alas, not a bird we see in Norfolk anymore
Not a warbler – but it certainly behaved like one! Snow Bunting feeding in a tree
‘OBP’- Olive-backed Pipit in Kergord Wood – photo courtesy of Neil

Mopping up

A couple of Common Rosefinch in Swinister Burn were the best birds of the day

Twenty four hours on and we’ve mopped up most of the regular birds on Mainland – having decided that island hopping for rarities was not for us, at this stage anyway. An obliging Little on our first morning was our scarcest bunting but a Snow, in the car-park of an abandoned hotel was the biggest surprise. Another Barred, more Yellow-browed and several other commoner warblers were seen yesterday, but the best bird(s) by far were the two Common Rosefinch, in Swinister Burn – first ones I’ve seen in the UK this century! The weather overnight was meant to be strong winds and rain, so we’re hoping for a clear-out and a re-stocking. We’ll see.

A touch of home – Purple Sandpiper in Sandwick Bay

Barred beginnings

An obliging Barred Warbler on our autumn trip to Shetland – back after a 50 year interval

As an alternative to our usual autumn trip to Cornwall, looking for migrants, we’ve come to Shetland. It’s been over 50 years since I was last here, on a teenage camping holiday. The birding highlight of that trip were the Snowy Owl on Fetlar* – the last year they bred successfully I think. We drove up to Newcastle on Thursday to stay with Neil and Nicola before heading off to Aberdeen with them to catch the overnight ferry to Lerwick. Birding on the way, we’d amassed a list of 65 before nightfall – including another Eastern (Siberian) Stonechat at Amble and a heap of interesting sea duck in Gosford Bay. There was no birding from the ferry – it was dark when we set sail and still dark when we docked – so our first taste of Shetland birding was a dawn stroll along the shore of Clickimin Loch, with it’s iconic broch. One of the first birds we saw was an obliging Barred Warbler. This would have been a Kernow highlight but here they are a little more regular. Let’s hope it’s not the only highlight.

* Rob if you are reading this perhaps you could post a copy of your original pics?

A day by the lake

Western Rock Nuthatch on the Eskikoy Rocky Outcrop

Yesterday we finished off our impromptu birding week in Dalyan at the place it began –  Eskikoy Rocky Outcrop – albeit in rather less taxing circumstances. Our exhausting day in the mountains the day before had blunted our appetite for another long excursion so instead we decided to stay local – a day by the lake. We began after breakfast by heading to Turtle Beach, checking out the roadside pools and woodlands as we did so. Crag Martin in the hirundine flock high above the peninsular and a Middle Spotted Woodpecker in the Turkey Oaks ensured it wasn’t going to be a ‘dot day’. Returning to Dalyan we then headed for Koycez, doing an anti-clockwise circuit of the lake, before crossing the Dalyan river on the small ferry back to our hotel for an afternoon siesta. Before supper, making full use of our three day car hire, we returned to ‘the rock’ for a final session of sunset birding. A mixed flock of Swallow, Sand Martin and Red-rumped Swallow filled the sky, along with a group of migrating Bee-eaters. Marsh Harrier, egrets and Pygmy Cormorant were over the reed-beds whilst a Kingfisher darted along the canal. Red-backed Shrike, Crested Lark and Western Rock Nuthatch on the rocky outcrop itself, all made for a satisfying end to the day – and our week, revisiting a birding location with very happy memories. Today it’s, retuning the car, lunch and then hanging around the hotel for our airport pickup and evening flight home.

Red-backed Shrike have been our constant companions this week

Postscript: I forgot to include this photo of the amazing structure of a Western Rock Nuthatch’s nest