Killdeer – Sandwick, South Mainland, Shetland, 3^rd December 2016

Quite (surprisingly so!) large for a 'ringed plover' -alike plover, with ridiculously long wings and tail, long yellowish-grey legs and a quite stout black bill. Tail pattern only briefly / partially seen but a 'mad affair' with a brilliant orange brown upper tail and rump and pale tip, similarly head and upper breast a mad stripy affair,. Large black eye with a brilliant browny-orange iris. Coverts, etc., pale-fringed.

So..... . Just less than three weeks after it first was located, I finally successfully twitched the Killdeer at Sandwick, South Mainland, Shetland. This was a twitch reminiscent of those for Pine Grosbeak and Blue-cheeked Bee-eater of yesteryear, involving getting to Aberdeen and catching the overnight ferry to Lerwick, enabling me to get to the bird early the following morning.

It had been located on Sunday the 13th November, and although it wasn’t reported on some days, it remained in the same place, and was reported most days, during the intervening period before I finally got there on Saturday the 3rd December.

Perhaps I should have responded before this, given that in terms of the number of previous records, Killdeer was right up there in terms of species I should perhaps have seen before now.

That said, previous weekends were taken up with seeing my ailing Dad and having Tessa respectively. And between times I was working, and also gadding around seeing The Cure in Manchester, etc..

So, it wasn’t until the weekend of Friday the 2nd / Saturday 3rd December / Sunday 4th December that I had the chance to go for it.

That said, working in Keith in north-east Scotland, and having a daughter at University in Aberdeen played into my strategy well.

As provisionally arranged earlier in the week with Ellen (knowing it had been seen that day) I left work in Keith by around 14:30 on the Friday afternoon and drove along the A96 to Aberdeen, before circumnavigating the inner ring road and taking King Street to the university accommodation complex where Ellen had her flat.

This all went swimmingly well (taking and sending work related phone calls and e-mails en route excepted). Or at least it did until I got to Ellen’s flats. Despite earlier arrangements, and text messages sent on the day I couldn’t get any response from her on arrival, despite endless calls and voice-mails, and so it wasn’t until, after some difficulty, having ‘phoned Gillian and confirmed the flat number, that I got buzzed in by her flat-mate. All very tricky; strange man loitering outside a female accommodation block trying to get in….. .

Worse, having been granted entry by a flat-mate of Ellen’s, I was then faced with the trauma of knocking on and opening the door to Ellen’s room, not knowing what had prevented her from letting me in. Was she in there? And if she was there, was she alone, alive?

Anyway, I summoned up the courage and knocked and entered.

Only then did it emerge that Ellen was actually fast asleep (at 16:15, as you do); as I say, it’s quite a worrying episode when you are stood in the doorway of your teenage daughters’ darkened room at University and the shape in the unmade bed finally and suddenly moves in blind panic at your presence.... .

Anyway, although this delayed us, and we then missed a bus into Aberdeen from within the complex itself, she then redeemed herself by escorting me to a bus-stop on King’s Road, accompanying me on the bus to Union Street, and then walking with me all the way to the ferry terminal in Aberdeen Harbour (helping me with carrying my bags – aaaah!).

Having purchased my tickets and said goodbye to daughter number one, I boarded the MV Hrossey and enjoyed an uneventful crossing between Aberdeen and Lerwick between 19:00 on the Friday night and 07:00 on the Saturday morning. All very nostalgic, and nothing like as archaic as the St Clair..... .

I dined early in the restaurant, and treated myself to a pint of Summer Din in the bar, but then retreated to a secluded lounge area with both reclining seats and comfortable seating areas. I tried to sleep in one of the reclining seats but in the end removed three of the cushions from the comfortable seating and improvised a bed of sorts. All the same, I slept reasonably well.

The ferry arrived in Lerwick by around 07:10, and having assembled my gear, I disembarked, and walked to the nearby taxi-rank. My taxi driver was an elderly Asian man who was a follower of the Shetland Birds Facebook site, so we bantered away on the way south to Sandwick. I had printed of a local O.S. map extract, and so we jointly navigated my way to the appropriate road junction, where I got dropped off.

It was still dark. Having decided I was in the right place, I established base camp at a gateway alongside the junction, (see red dot on map), near to one of the two fields favoured by the bird according to a map Hugh Harrop had put on Twitter. To pass the time until it got light I walked along the road towards Sandwick and so alongside the other favoured field, a partially flooded stubble field, unsurprisingly seeing nowt.

I then returned to base camp, and again to pass time until it got light I faffed around with the focus of my bins which had ‘suffered’ in my overnight bag. In the process, surprisingly easily and quickly (given the very dubious early morning ‘light’) I suddenly located the plover as it fed in the nearby favoured field (see yellow highlighted field). So, for the next 90 minutes or so, I had it all to myself, apart from passing local walkers and dog-walkers, all of whom were really friendly and chatty, and, this being Shetland, spoke about the bird knowledgeably.

It actively fed in typical plover fashion, rapidly moving a few paces and then stopping and searching for food. That said, it often stopped and remained in one place for surprisingly long periods (such that I could often look away from the zoomed to 60x ‘scope giving very close-up views, and find it still in view when I looked back), presumably not just searching for food, but also resting and definitely completing its ablutions.

A few other waders (a couple of Redshank and a few Golden Plover) were also feeding in the same small, sloping, fenced, re-seeded field, which was seemingly favoured as muck had been liberally scattered over it and as it was partly waterlogged. However, the Killdeer was only very loosely associated with them. The Redshank and the Golden Plover were a bit nervous at times, the odd Golden Plover flying off or the Redshank calling anxiously, for example, but the Killdeer, if anything, merely remained stationary when any such disturbance occurred. However, it did call very occasionally, a high-pitched plaintive whistling.

In comparison with other ‘ringed’ plovers, and also with the adjacent Redshank and Golden Plover, it was perhaps surprisingly large (a similar size to the Redshank perhaps). It was certainly elongated, both the tail and the wings appeared very long when the bird was at rest.

In principle, the plumage was typical of other ‘ringed’ plovers. That is, white under-parts, mid-brown upper-parts, black and white striped head and upper breast. That said, in practice, it also had a madly complicated black and white striped head and upper breast pattern and a stunningly patterned tail which was a brilliant orange-brown upper tail and rump and pale tip (though this was only briefly /partially seen).

The head and upper breast pattern involved a thick (but not complete) black band on the lower part of the upper breast and a thin black band above this around the entire lower neck, and a broad white band above this which was broader at the front of the neck around the throat and narrower at the rear of the neck around the nape, combined with a head and face pattern not altogether unlike juvenile Semi-palmated Plover. The coverts, etc., were pale fringed. It had a large black eye, with a brilliant browny-orange iris. The legs were long and yellowish grey and the quite stout bill was black.

Having watched it for the best part of two hours I departed to walk to the bus-stop and enjoy a relaxing few hours in Lerwick before catching the Hrossey back to Aberdeen. During my bus journey I canvassed opinion from locals about where best to get breakfast in Lerwick, and the very definite concensus was at the fantastic Fjara café bar near Tesco’s.

Here I enjoyed a really lovely full Scottish cooked breakfast in one of the annex rooms. Also, in the same annex were a group of yummy mummies and their young children. I apologised for taking up too much space with all my clutter and cramping their style. Gratifying, this being Shetland, rather than shunning me as some sort of deviant weirdo, they engaged with me and seemed genuinely interested in what I had been doing. One, in particular, very definitely ‘caught my eye’; certainly her very enticingly positioned tattoo did! I hardly knew where to look without lapsing into some sort of deviant weirdo mode….. 😉.

Afterwards, I enjoyed the walk into the centre of Lerwick around The Knab to, er, cool down….. 😊.

All absolutely excellent. No wonder I love twitching Shetland! The return ferry trip cost £54, and the taxi journey from Lerwick to Sandwick cost £30, and I also paid bus fares in Aberdeen and Shetland (just £2.20 for the journey back from Sandwick to Lerwick). So, discounting the food and drink costs involved (I would have had to eat and drink anyway!) it was a very cost-effective twitch, just like those of old for Pine Grosbeak and Blue-cheeked Bee-eater, and arguably even easier as I was in north-east Scotland anyway, and could use the facilities provided by the student Ellen studying at Aberdeen University to my advantage. All good; bring on the next goodie in Shetland.

Killdeer, Sandwick, South Mainland, Shetland, November 2016 (photograph credited to Dave Aitken).