Pine Grosbeak – Lerwick, Mainland Shetland, 4^th April 1992

In early 1992 I commenced working on a project based in the South Queensferry area, and so, a very short time after travelling solo in Morocco for three weeks over Christmas / New Year 1991/1992, I was working and living in South Queensferry.

News of a Pine Grosbeak in Lerwick broke on around Wednesday the 25th March 1992, but, having already committed to a trip back to St. Albans that weekend, I was unable to twitch early, so I spent an anxious week or more monitoring Birdline for news. A combination of howling north-east winds and an apparently ailing bird made for an even more anxious interlude.

However, being now able to be in Aberdeen from South Queensferry within about two hours I was able to strike. There was a shortage of information on Thursday the 2nd April, but eventually there was positive news on the Friday afternoon, and so I dashed to Aberdeen in time for the 18:00 ferry along with a few other birders, who included Bernie Beck and Paul Harvey...... (this was an interesting ‘meeting’ of minds as I don’t think Paul had ever met anyone quite like Bernie, and Paul was a Leeds United fan and Bernie a Manchester United fan and it was towards the end of the 1991/1992 season: enough said).

Unfortunately, the crossing was sufficiently rough to make me retire to my bunk early, so missing the craich, but fortunately I was a well man once I got to bed. So I got up well-refreshed and once we arrived in Lerwick I made my way to the supposed venue, a combination of gardens, a copse and back roads. But only a few spruces......... .

But no sign. We were on site at 08:10 and I had hardly eaten in 36 hours, so I wandered off to a shop by way of a bowling green, where other birders were, or weren’t..... . Mildly panicked, I was rescued by the original finder of the bird (Father Barry) who promptly chauffeured me back to the original scene. Here the object of my quest was now showing well (and probably always had been) as in demolished vast amounts of hawthorn buds whilst clambering around in the hawthorn.

Agent Orange! It was a large cumbersome finch clambering through the outer branches of the bushes methodically stripping them of their leaves. The upper-breast, head, nape, etc., (including a narrow band on the rump) were a light orangy-brown, the wing-bars and webs of the primaries and secondaries were white against black, whilst the rest of the plumage was essentially light grey.

It had a dark facial patch as with crossbills, with a small dark eye and a heavy bill. After grilling it for more than two hours, eventually in the company of only Paul, it became relatively frantic in its movements an dropped from the hawthorns towards the edge of the copse where, agitatedly, it tried to gain the highest perch to continue across to its favourite 11:00 spruce..... .

It para-scended to the ground, not flying very well and then I managed views of c.2m down onto it (a la the Isabelline Wheatear at Telegraph, St. Mary’s and the Desert Wheatear at Selsey Bill). Eventually it made its way to the spruce, where it gave excellent views to me and many other recent arrivals – at which cue I left.

Two images taken by me at the time just to demonstrate I have been consistently good at not getting photographs of birds, despite my claims that it showed at less than two metres........ .

Pine grosbeak, Lerwick, Shetland, March 1992 (photograph credited to unknown).