White’s Thrush – Baltasound Junior High School, Baltasound, Unst, Shetland, 20th October 2015
"There!! Right in front of you!!!" An attempt to capture the mad frenzy of flashing black and white and spangled olive-gold mega-excitement of the White's Thrush breaking cover.
As I have ‘matured’ I have increasingly become convinced about the importance of happenstance; the (fortunate) coincidence of time and place.
..... a few years ago Ken Shaw (who I had long known having lived and birded in Scotland since 1992) moved to Queensferry, with which I have always been associated since my move to Scotland.
Obviously, as fellow birders, we regularly met up in one of the hostelries in 'The Ferry' to imbibe beers and share stories.
In addition, this happy coincidence allowed me to continue my quest to regain my work life balance now my daughters are teenagers and once I finally realised as a sole trader I (and not my clients) was in control of what I do when.
So, in both October 2013 and 2014 I accompanied Ken on visits to the Scillies, so visiting these magical islands for the first time since the 1990s. Better still, these trips involved staying on St. Agnes and doing some proper birding with some proper birders, and so making new friends such as Paul French, Jonny Holliday and Chris Pendlebury.
Move forward to 2015 and for reasons way too complex to explain there were no plans for the Scillies this autumn. Rather Ken sorted a Shetland double header which involved us being on Fair Isle for some eight days and the Unst for seven days. Two different crews. Very different places and very different birding. Again, I was visiting Shetland for the first time since the 1990s.
Fair Isle was fantastic – even more so than I had remembered or anticipated. The Obs was even more comfortable than before, and the Obs staff, and, in particular, the incredibly keen (in every sense) assistant wardens Ciaran Hatsell and Lee Gregory were brilliant. And the birding? Well too many good birds to mention, so I will just say Lanceolated Warbler.
So, well set up by Fair Isle (and also Mainland Shetland) we rendezvoused with new crew members Paul Collin and Rory Whytock and travelled to Unst on Monday the 17th October. Here we were staying in the incredible Noosthamar a.k.a. 'The Shetland Nature Lodge'.
The 18th was basically a familiarisation day with a guided tour of some of the best sites courtesy of Ken, and some half decent birds for Unst in October including Shoveler, Osprey and Kestrel.
The 19th was more of the same, and we managed to find more good birds including Glaucous Gull, Richard's Pipit and Bluethroat. This was the last day of an extended period of easterly or calm weather.
We secretly dreaded the days of westerlies and rain forecasted but certain of our number held out hope in the form of the 'switch' in weather patterns......
The earlier part 20th seemed to bear out our concerns as it was 'more of the same but less' in terms of our regular indicators of bird movements, Chiffchaff, Blackcap and Yellow-browed Warbler; still around but in comparatively small numbers. There had been a clear out.
Late on the 19th Ken had re-discovered the shelter belt plantation near the high school in Baltasound. We noted that various small pre-roost flocks of Redwing and Starling plus Fieldfare, Brambling and Chaffinch were associated with this relatively sheltered small mixed woodland.
In one of those happenstance moments after we had visited one or two of the 'usual' places on our daily round with little or no success none of us argued when Ken suggested we checked out the high school again. Fortunately it was half-term, so birding here, a site that is out-of-bounds during school hours, was fair game.
Not that we had much success, at least initially. We jointly and variously circumnavigated the plantation with no success and so the others wandered along the road.
Meanwhile, as is my wont, I 'went in' confirming if, nothing else, that the plantation was a well-used roost site as I pushed my way through the stunted Sitka spruce.
If I flushed something bigger than the usual suspects I was blissfully unaware so I absentmindedly followed the others, making my way to the nearby road. As I did so I was aware of a distant car moving closer on the road and then I heard a shout from broadly the same direction.
Somehow my brain managed to associate the two and in a very un-Unst way I assumed that some irate motorist had shouted abuse at one of my birding colleagues.
Only when Ken shouted basically the same advice again did my brain begin to engage. Anyone who knows Ken will know he can whisper across a ploughed field and it became apparent that I (and anyone else in Baltasound) was being advised of a White's Thrush....!!!
As I made it to the edge of the road I could see Ken making his way back towards me and the plantation, and Paul and Rory were also returning.
Garbled explanations revealed that both Paul and Rory and then Ken had seen a White's Thrush in flight and it had flown towards the plantation, presumably after being kicked out of it by me!
We made our way back, me staying in the school grounds rather than clambering out of them and the others going around the other side of the plantation. I was in shock; I needed White's Thrush, and having flushed it I was the only one who hadn't seen it!!
This was relatively quickly sorted as the presence of the others on the opposite side of the plantation briefly flushed the bird out to my side where it fleetingly perched just a few metres away giving me non-bins views of the underwing and undertail patterns as it alighted before it almost instantly dived back into the deep cover. My abiding impression though was the size of the beast.
Poor views. Not tick-able. Shock levels increasing.
Then, worse, as I edged forward and peered into the dark under-storey Rory shouted again as it flew out of the deepest, thickest part of the plantation and dashed into the other end behind me. Aaargh!!
We assembled on the conveniently situated boardwalk through the marsh in the school grounds, and assembled our thoughts. As I had mobile reception Ken used my ‘phone to alert island birders, and I used it to ‘phone the RBA hotline.
I was gaga by now. Any real mega finds I have been involved with have always been abroad. So this is what a real find feels like. Confused emotions, unsatisfactory views of a real skulker, my colleagues having had much better flight views and or having seen 28 or something in the UK (Ken) or loads in Asia (Paul). Would I see it again?
Well armed reinforcements quickly arrived in the form of Brydon Thomason and Micky Maher complete with camera gear. They were quickly briefed. Then we waited. And waited. We probably didn't wait that long but it certainly felt like yonks..... .
Rory had seen just were the bird had dived back into cover but no amount of peering into the dark plantation produced any hint of our bird. Ultimately Paul, very experienced with the species in Asia, began to believe it might that it had somehow darted away from the cover of the plantation without us seeing it. After all, the plantation was less than 60 m in length and perhaps 10 m or 5 or 6 rows of trees wide at one end tapering away to nothing at the other. It was also comprised of small (less than 5 m tall) stunted Sitka spruce with a few broadleaves amongst them. Surely 6 of us couldn't lose it in there could we? But conversely surely 6 of us should have been able to locate it in there?
Eventually, we decided that without a ‘walk through’ it was unlikely it would be seen again. Ken and Paul slowly walked through from the thinner end of the plantation. As they did so suddenly there it was again in flight, flying fast past each of us as we watched from our respective vantage points. In what was probably less than 30 or 45 seconds it was watched variously circumnavigating the plantation, landing very briefly and also flying off towards nearby gardens before abandoning that idea and returning back to the safety of the deepest refuges of the plantation.
We all had reasonably good flight views and some of us also had brief views of it perched up. Brydon and Micky spectacularly managed to bang off a few record shoots. Personally, besides the size and sheer presence of the bird my abiding memory was of the amazing upper tail pattern as it flew directly away from me towards the gardens; not just the pale outer tail margins but also the amazing dark centres of the upper tail.
We all convened for further mutual congratulation and self-congratulation. Elation was the predominant emotion.
However, it quickly emerged on inspection of the back of the camera shots that the bird had a significant amount of breast feathering missing, and worse, there was a large, fresh flesh wound possibly inflicted by a cat. On realising this we all agreed fundamentally the bird should be left alone and to push the bird again was not an option, either that day or the following one.
All a bit of a sad conclusion but ‘wow' remains my overall feeling.
Brian Minshull, Ken Shaw, Paul Collin and Rory Whytock
The following year we returned to Unst (with a series of different crews) and on the 7th October we saw another White’s Thrush at Skaw, very well.
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