Confessions of a lapsed birder

Black-browed Albatross – Saito outcrop, Hermaness National Nature Reserve, Hermaness, Unst, Shetland, 12^th April 1993

My sketch of the Black-browed Albatross as I watched it circling below me off the Saito outcrop, Hermaness, Unst, attempting and failing, to capture the sheer enormity of everything.......!

This involved a very frustrating and freezing vigil, but ultimately, a massively rewarding one.

I had decided it was now or never for me and Albert, and so I had planned to go to Shetland during Easter 1993 to bang in this fantastic returning bird and then have some quality birding time. That was the plan. He / she / it had returned for another lonely vigil….. .

Albert Ross (I know, I know) was a returning bird that had been associated with the gannetry at Hermaness every spring-summer since 1972. Dave McAleavy and I had tried to see him/ her / it when in Shetland in May / June 1990. Now, as I was working on the Forties Crude Export Expansion Project outside South Queensferry, Edinburgh, and the project was shutting down over Easter, I had the perfect opportunity to go.

So it was that I made my second pilgrimage to Hermaness. Having driven from Edinburgh to Aberdeen and parked up my little AMEC works van on the afternoon of Thursday the 8th April, I then took the St. Clair from Aberdeen overnight and then hired a car from Bolts once I arrived in Lerwick early on the morning of Friday the 9th April, before driving north through the island chain and then walking from the Hermaness NNR car-park to almost the very northern tip of the British Isles.

For four days. I spent three, six and nine hours perched atop a cliff overlooking Saito, the outcrop on the Hermaness cliffs favoured by Albert, hoping that one of the Gannets would somehow transmogrify into a Black-browed Albatross.

A very cold south-east wind did not make the walk between the car-park and the Neap (from which I viewed Saito) or vice versa, or the vigil any the more pleasurable.

However, the scenery and the scenes, the birds and the birders all made things that bit more pleasurable.

Although I had ‘missed’ Saito on the way in on the first day, and so after my doubts, I was fairly certain I was looking in the right place. But to no avail. I retired, and having driven to Baltasound, opted for the Ungera Guest House after two shopping attempts. This may have been a good idea, as information was forthcoming following conversations in the post office. It was from the call-box outside that I later ‘phoned Ian Spence(?) who had found the bird on Wednesday the 7th April (the first date on which it had been reported in 1993...).

I then went to the fabled (and now ill-fabled) Baltasound Hotel for a bar meal surrounded by deep-sea fishermen to the appropriate accompaniment of ‘The Boys are Back in Town’ by Thin Lizzy. All very odd...... . I seem to remember them getting very drunk before boarding their fishing boat to go out to sea. I kind of get that, in hindsight.

Anyway, more of the same followed the next day, Saturday the 10th April, after some optimism caused by another birder having seen it. Richard the Hat (for it was he) had seen it between 08:00 and 08:30. So when did I arrive? Yep, too late, I arrived at 10:00. However, buoyed at least by a sighting, I stayed until 16:00 with Richard(s) for company for much of the time.

And more of the same followed the next day, Sunday the 11th April, my next day shift, this time between 07:00 and 15:30; again for nothing, despite my early start (a day too late....). Some good birds, and some good company, and a new, more sheltered viewing location. I retired eventually to both the bed and breakfast and the hotel again with good company, and prepared for my final days vigil.

On the morning of Monday the 12th April, just to break the monotony, I chose to walk up the burn to the Saito / Neap area, and on arrival I found I had the place to myself.

Better, incredibly, the bird was immediately on show as I looked back as I walked up onto the Neap. I then watched and photographed it for the next 1.5 hours as it circled around and around Saito attempting (in a half-hearted way) to land (the gannetry had grown hugely during the 19 years since the albatross was first seen at Hermaness, and now the Gannets wouldn’t let the albatross land). WOW!!!!!! It just drifted around and around without landing throughout my stay, although I lost it in the end. But that didn’t matter by then.

It was huge, with rigid dark grey wings, a white head and body, and a grey tail. It had a yellow bill and yellow feet, and both bill and feet were large. Predictably, it had a dark patch above the eye. It was like a Fulmar x Greater Black-backed Gull hybrid on steroids.

I enjoyed the whole experience so much that, when I finally twitched the Turkestan Shrike at Bempton in the summer of 2022 I wasn’t all that fussed when I failed to connect with the nearby Black-browed Albatross. I looked for it half-heartedly, admittedly but in a strange way I almost didn’t want to see it in case it somehow detracted from my whole Hermaness experience more than 29 years earlier