Confessions of a lapsed birder

Eye-browed Thrush – Setter, Fair Isle, 4^th October 1992

Thanks to Russell Cooper, and also Elizabeth Harvey and Roger Riddington, I was saved from missing a really good bird, i.e., Eye-browed Thrush, despite having ignored the Fair Isle maxim, “Never go north in the afternoon,” (on the basis that if something turns up elsewhere in the afternoon you might miss it when it goes dark before you can get there).

I subsequently wrote up the circumstances for a, “My Best Days Birding in Scotland” article which was published in Birding Scotland in October 2001 (Birding Scotland Volume 4 (4) pp. 146 – 149. This is replicated here:

My Best Days Birding in Scotland – Brian Minshull

I had to think long and hard about my best days birding in Scotland. Not that I was necessarily overwhelmed by choice. I hasten to add that this is more a matter relating to my personal circumstances as opposed to any lack of opportunity for good birding here in Scotland. My work on pipeline projects often takes me away from home so that any birding has to be crammed in on occasional trips to the field on weekends at home or when I am ‘between projects’, as we short-term contract workers say. Domestic circumstances have also compounded this situation; in the past four years I have got married and had two daughters, moved house and worked in each of Peru, California and Turkey for several months.

I have been resident in Scotland since early 1992, when I first moved to the Queensferry area to work on a BP Project that doubled the export capacity of the facilities at Hound Point and Dalmeny. That year I took the chance to go to Fair Isle for two weeks during the first half of October. This would be my first visit to Shetland and Fair Isle at this time of year although I had been to Foula on two seabird ringing expeditions in 1979 and 1980 and more recently a friend and I had visited Scotland to ‘do’ the Scottish specialities in May 1990. This trip culminated in a few days on Shetland and Fair Isle allowing us to jam in on the Pallas’s Sandgrouse. I had also been to Shetland on a couple of other occasions for out and out twitches, with mixed success. The Sandhill Crane in September 1991 set off for Holland at precisely the moment I committed to purchasing tickets to fly from Manchester to Sumburgh, whereas the Pine Grosbeak in April 1992 was somewhat more obliging, and showed brilliantly for the duration of my visit to Lerwick between St. Clair sailings.

As such expectations were high – two weeks on Fair Isle at around about prime time. All the more so after I had two ticks on mainland Shetland on the 2nd October as my friend Pete Ewer and I travelled from Edinburgh to Fair Isle; Dusky Warbler and Black-headed Bunting.

On arrival on Fair Isle we found a collection of well-known birders including Mick Turton, Tom Francis and Doug Page already there. In addition, there was Russell Cooper, a real character from my native North-East Lancashire and someone I had previously met in the Scillies. Meeting up with birders such as these simply added to my expectations.

The next day, our first full day on Fair Isle, produced some good birds including one Olive-backed Pipit and one Pallas’s Warbler as well as several species with a winter flavour, including Brambling, Lapwing, Lapland Bunting, Jack Snipe and skeins of geese.

On the 4th October, the day in question, the weather was anything but in keeping with such birds, as it was a day reminiscent of some days during October in the Scillies, calm with unseasonably warm sunshine. As is evidenced by the accompanying photograph I was intent on making the most of this. Having gone south towards the crofting areas in the morning with similar results to the previous day, including one Pallas’s Warbler, two Yellow-browed Warblers, one Olive-backed Pipit and one Woodchat Shrike, I decided to ignore the popular convention of, “Never go north in the afternoon”. This maxim is given in order to prevent people missing goodies that are discovered in the crofting areas late in the afternoon only to disappear that night. For whatever reason though I sent off in tee-shirt and shorts (yes, it was that warm) for a walk along the cliffs in the north and west of the island, away from the more ‘intensive’ birding in the south.

he birds I had seen earlier were good enough, but perhaps I wanted to do my own thing and find my own birds rather than see those found by others. Going north would give me the chance to do this. Nothing too exciting was seen between the Obs and the North Light; my notebook records one Guillemot, one Great Skua, three Teal at Golden Water and on Wheatear, but once at the Light things started to happen.

As I worked my way through the assorted pipits feeding on the short-cropped turf on the cliff-tops adjacent to the lighthouse one appeared to be an obvious Olive-backed Pipit, a species I had been watching closely just a few hours earlier ‘down south’ so I suppose I had ‘got my eye in’. My memory and notebook do not serve to remind me whether I was initially alerted to its presence by a call or not, but nonetheless, there it was. Now it is not every day you find an OBP, and although it was a little disconcerting seeing one feeding with Rock and Meadow Pipits in the atypical setting of short-cropped turf as opposed to some sort of denser cover, I was happy enough with my initial i.d.; this was Fair Isle after all. Indeed, so much so that I took the opportunity to show it to Mrs Stout, who like several other islanders that Sunday afternoon was day-tripping to North Light, as you do.

I got my ‘scope onto it so that I could let Mrs Stout have a look, (although she had probably already seen umpteen OBPs). During the usual process of, “Now let me get the ‘scope back on it – right it’s in there now”, I was somewhat bemused when another pipit, looking just like ‘my’ OBP, walked into view and past the bird we were looking at. A crisis of confidence ensued – was I stringing OBPs, and misleading the good Mrs Stout?

Fortunately, meanwhile another family of islanders had arrived, and as the family was the Riddifords, help was at hand, the former warden of the Obs would put me right.

I called Nick over, and explained my predicament. I suppose I could allow myself to believe I had stumbled onto one OBP, but two seemed a little careless. So somewhat reluctantly, I told Nick that I had been watching what I was sure was an OBP with Mrs Stout when another had walked past it. I got him onto the birds and asked him to confirm my i.d.. Unfortunately, they had continued moving along the cliff top and as a result the light was less than clever, but Nick was able to confirm they certainly looked good for OBPs. He couldn’t be 100% sure, because of the light, but said they looked good.

So I wasn’t cracking up then, and buoyed with re-found confidence I volunteered to move around the birds in the hope that they would return back to where I had first seen them, and so into better light for Nick.

This I did, but unfortunately the birds didn’t agree my plans and flew, calling as they did so. They flew towards Nick and he gestured ‘two’ (or at least that’s what I thought he was doing, although he may have been enraged by my careless flushing!). Anyway, I set off back towards him, and as I did so two pipits flew overhead giving the same distinctive call we had just heard. By now things were getting out of hand; were these birds the same two which had just come around in a big circuit, or two more? Nick congratulated me on my find and we discussed the ‘two bird’ situation before I continued on my way, leaving the various islanders to enjoy their Sunday afternoon constitutional.

All exhilarating stuff!

As I left the North Light area I had a flock of 22 Siskin and on Easter Lother Water there was a Dunlin. However, my notebook and memory don’t begin to do justice to the events of the next couple of hours as I walked around the clifftops from North Light to Burrashield in ‘perfect weather’. Time and again, I would arrive at the top of a geo and find it crawling with birds. I would sit at the edge of the cliff overlooking the grassy slopes at the top of the geos and work my way through the migrants flitting about. Often they were ridiculously close to me. I guess the warm weather meant that they were working their way up the cliffs and into the upper reaches of the geos with the result that I had concentrations of migrants to work my way through. Nothing too spectacular but nonetheless, absolutely fantastic birding. It was hypnotic in a way; I knew I could be missing out if something was found in the south of the island but it was addictive, drug-like, as anything could be around the next corner, or rather in the next geo. Sitting at the top of geos in warm sunshine searching through warblers for goodies and surrounded by interesting geology and botany was superb.

By the time I reached Burrashield I had clocked up two Yellow-browed Warblers, three Ring Ouzels, four Redstarts, eight Blackcaps, one Garden Warbler, one Chiffchaff, six Goldcrests and four Robins in the various geos at the back of Ward Hill. Nothing too stunning, but extremely enjoyable as the walk was in fantastic scenery and weather and there was a mix of satisfaction and expectation throughout; I felt as though my decision to do my own thing had more than paid off.

Reluctantly then, I tore myself away from the cliffs and down over Burrashield and Sukka Mire towards the airfield, seeing three Short-eared Owls on the way. As I descended I must have been highly visible to those birders in the crofting areas and also to islanders attempting to enjoy the day of rest in my lurid combination of white tee-shirt, orange shorts and pink skin.

Despite my excellent few hours birding I suppose I had some misgivings about what I might have missed. Luckily my lack of subdued clothing, (contrary to another oft-repeated birding maxim) was to be my saving grace.

My notebook kicks into life here, so I’ll quote directly.

“Having spent an exhilarating few hours on the North and West cliffs – two Olive-backed Pipits and two Yellow-browed Warblers amongst my many finds, I made my way down from the tops to the airfield. Here, whilst reading the National Trust for Scotland sign, I was rescued by a running Russell Cooper, who blurted out the words, “Brian, Eye-browed Thrush.” I ran towards Setter, to be rescued by Elizabeth (Harvey) in the mini-bus, and delivered to my destiny. I got dropped off at the School, and from there, continued my run to those still watching the bird at the back of the crofts at Field and Barkland.

Here the assistant warden (Roger Riddington) soon had me onto it, the bird amongst the Redwing. And what a bird! It was on a sloping area of the next field, feeding with 20 or 30 Redwing. Superficially similar to the Redwing with similar upperparts including head. This was distinctively patterned with an obvious white supercilium and a crescent around the rear of the ear-coverts and extending towards the base of the bill. The upperparts were a rich brownish orange.”

Evidently, when the bird was found it became apparent that I was not around and to my eternal gratitude Russell had firstly scanned the hills until he spotted me and then legged it to the airstrip to tell me the news!! I can picture him now gasping for breath and blurting out those words.

The Eye-browed Thrush was a tick for me and coming at the end of a day which had also involved me seeing one Pallas’s Warbler, two Yellow-browed Warbler, one Olive-backed Pipit and one Woodchat Shrike and finding two Olive-backed Pipits and two Yellow-browed Warblers suitably completed the day.

This all meant that I had a lot of writing up to do. Paul Harvey, the then warden, asked me to write up a description of the Olive-backed Pipits and having heard about this multiple occurrence had to take me to one side and urged me to ignore what others, including a previous warden of FIBO, was saying about how many birds were involved and tell him how many I thought were involved!

I am still not entirely sure, but the British Birds Rarities Committee report dutifully records “…another two, possibly three, 4th …(R. Minshull……)” . Got my name wrong again, as they did the previous time I had submitted a record, but you can’t have everything.

That night, courtesy of Dave Suddaby, plans were made for a boat to North Ronaldsay so that the twitchers amongst us could see the Siberian Thrush there, and as good as that twitch was it did not compare with the previous days eventful birding, my best days birding in Scotland.

Footnote: During the process of writing this article I dug out a photocopy of the description I submitted for the pipits. This refers to another sheet on which I think attempted to explain the circumstances involved. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a copy of this and so for that ‘quoting from notes made at the time’ feel I tried to get hold of a copy of this account, firstly by contacting FIBO, and then Paul Harvey, with no luck. However, during the course of our conversation Paul told me he had been to North Light that morning and had heard what he thought was probably OBP, and adding to the confusion had also had two Tree Pipits there! Also, apparently, Nick Riddiford had submitted his own description of the OBP’s as well. All this was in the middle of what proved to be a ‘mini-fall’ of OBPs on Fair Isle.