April 20, 2006
A pheasant surprise
On my way back to catch the ferry home yesterday, driving through the wilds of the east side, I came across a most unexpected and out-of-place sight for Shetland, a plumptious male Pheasant. Obviously I accelerated hard at it in a blaze of mouth-watering saliva as soon as the initial shock wore off, but alas the wily gamebird managed to quirm through a gap in the roadside fence to safety in the park beyond.
Well, not quite. What really happened was me screeching to a halt, trying to get a photo of this extreme (-ly feral) Shetland rarity before it scarpered, and nobody believed me. Besides, it was limping rather badly, so running it over wouldn't have been terribly sporting.
Then, bugger me backwards with a galliforme if another 2 females didn't emerge from the long grass to join it. And then... yet another male erupted out of the grass and flew off in a wild panic doing that chug-chug alarm call I associate with trespassing while out birding in private woodland in the south of England, rather than minding my own business on the public highway in Shetland.
4 Pheasants. My, my. Only a few days ago I was truly gripped by a report on MP's website of 1 survivor from a release a couple of years ago; and here I was quadrupling that record. Be still my beating heart. I can't imagine finding a BB rarity could be as exciting as this. So many fencehoppers in one week... not that I include the merganser in that tally. Oh no.
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April 18, 2006
Hooded Merganser (incl photos)
Shocking news came through to me on Sunday morning from DC – a drake Hooded Merganser had arrived the previous day on Unst. Why oh why not West Loch?! Like a fool I’d left my mobile to run down its battery, so I’d not heard the news break on Saturday afternoon, and hadn’t made it up there on Sunday. As it happened, this turned out for the best, as the inter-island ferries run much more regularly on weekdays rather than Sundays, so a trip up yesterday made for far less time away from home. Also, JL was free yesterday, so we left the island on the 6.30am boat and hastened north.
Three ferry crossings later, we were on Unst, and driving up to the small pool at Haroldswick where the bird had been seen on the previous two days. As we approached the turning for the pool, I asked JL if he felt optimistic it’d still be there. He did. Secretly, I didn't.
The pool was tiny, so there could be no doubt about what we found. Which was precisely bugger all. No ducks at all, let alone a drake Hooded Merganser. A Pied Wagtail and a male Reed Bunting were both new for the year for me, but hardly worth a trip to Unst for.
We tried the second location DC had given us, Loch of Cliff. A biting wind coming off the water made our walk along the banks of the loch an uncomfortable one, and the bitter pill of a still non-existent duck that little harder to swallow. Back at the car, we met PS, also searching for the bird. We set off in convoy for the north end of the loch, and there bumped into WD, the lucky finder of the duck – certainly an unexpected but well-earned addition to her WEBS census! She recommended a couple more locations in the north of Unst, but seemed a little fatalistic about our chances – it hadn’t been seen all morning, and the latter half of the night had been fairly clear…
Off we went, following our new leads. Some nice flooded field corners, and a few Teal proving their attraction to wildfowl, but no Merganser. We decided that enough was enough – we both needed to get home to our respective families, and couldn’t waste time looking for an apparently absent duck. We drove back towards Haroldswick, en route to the ferry… and in the near distance saw PS’s Saab, lights flashing. Good news… he’d re-found it, back on the pool at Haroldswick. A swift half mile dash, and we were watching a cracking drake Hooded Merganser feeding actively in bright sunlight.
The bird simply glowed in the perfect viewing conditions; we didn’t dare get out of the car for fear of flushing the bird, so managed to scope and photograph from within the car instead. The bird dived repeatedly, before settling down to preen on the water; a good chance to eliminate the possibility of rings on one leg at least, as it scratched its head with its left foot. PS later confirmed he’d seen the right leg was ring-free too.
BM and his wife arrived some 15 minutes later, and we continued to watch the bird from our respective cars. Suddenly, without warning it was off; exploding off the water and flying high away from us. It appeared to be heading back towards Loch of Cliff, but we’d seen enough – we had a ferry to catch.
What of its provenance? You certainly won’t find a Shetland birder who isn’t counting this wary, un-ringed and fully winged Nearctic duck as a genuine wild vagrant. But then, having seen it, we would say that wouldn’t we? The last potential ‘first’ Hooded Merganser, a female in autumn 2000 on North Uist was consigned to the limbo of Category D of the British list:
D Species that would otherwise appear in Category A except that there is reasonable doubt that they have ever occurred in a natural state. Species placed in Category D only form no part of the British List, and are not included in the species totals.
Source : British Ornithologists’ Union – The British List Species categories
A decision which made no sense then, and one which I fear will be in the pipeline for this bird too. Possibly more readily still, as this one’s a glamorous and more outlandish drake. Here’s the odd thing… if this was a drake of another Nearctic species with striking plumage, commonly kept in captivity, say a Blue-winged Teal, an American Wigeon, or a a Bufflehead, it would coast straight to acceptance as a genuine vagrant, and its rightful place in Category A. But for some reason Hooded Mergansers are a big no-no, and the possibility of a ‘vagrant’ HM being from a captive origin precludes acceptance. Whereas the exact same possibility of a captive origin for any of the other Nearctic duck species is seemingly not a problem.
Take Bufflehead for example. The BBRC are prepared to accept as a genuine vagrant a long-staying Bufflehead turning up in midsummer 2002 in the south-east county of Suffolk. How on earth can that be more acceptable than a Hooded Merganser in North Uist or Unst in the midst of autumn and spring migration respectively? Or more to the point, as I don’t wish to belittle that Bufflehead record, how are those HM records any less acceptable?
Of course, BBRC and BOURC are separate ratifying bodies. My gripe is most emphatically not with the BBRC - but I’m sure I’m not alone in being bewildered by the BOURC’s rationale for acceptance. All Nearctic ducks are equally plausible as vagrants, but some it seems are more equal than others.
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April 06, 2006
A walk on the wild side
Just got in after a very long hike around the south end of Bressay, on a classic Shetland spring day – the full mix of bright sunshine, driving rain, flat calm, hail, a screaming wind you could barely stand upright in, and snow. All this in the space of 5 hours. You’ve got to love a place with so much climate.
A really good walk though, even without any birds to speak of. A handful of Skylarks singing, and some Fulmars on cliff ledges far below me. The weather and seeing a new bit of Shetland made it for me, and for once I had a camera with me. Work, you understand!
I’ve never come across caves away from the cliffs here, so it was a novelty to find several inland on the peat moor. There were several ravines intersecting the heather, and within almost every one were holes of varying sizes, leading down into dark, open space below. Some were fairly small, but others seemed to go deeper, and were more intriguing. Expediency forced me into one of the larger ones as sunshine gave way to driving hail, with hailstones like small marbles. They stung badly, and as the storm showed no sign of abating I ducked inside and scrambled down a slope to a dry rocky chamber to sit it out. I had no idea these caves existed; presumably the whole headland is riddled with them.
Further round the coast the sun was back out again, and I stopped to shelter behind a lichen-encrusted wall. I’ve lost maps before in the snatching Shetland wind, and have learnt my lesson. Work eventually over, I made my way back over the island to where I’d left the car by the lighthouse - a much slower journey, as now heading directly into the strengthening wind.
I saw several Iceland Gulls here last winter, but nothing doing today. In fact, I’ve not seen a single white-winged gull this winter – strange, given the northerly complexion the winter has generally had.
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April 04, 2006
In which I learn more than I wanted to know
I can't believe I'm about to climb up into the cold and lonely heights of the moral highground, but there you go... somebody's got to say something. But first there needs to be a disclaimer; what follows may smack rather of sour grapes, but this isn't really the point. Something's happened that comes as a bit of a shock to me.
Ebay. Wonderful place, isn't it? Rumour has it that damn near anything is for sale there, from impoverished students' souls; an off the shelf friendship; glass eyeballs; and less exotic, more conventional stuff - like books.
As yes, books. For me, the internet as a whole and ebay in particular has proved a mixed blessing for secondhand books. Gone are the days of speculatively browsing secondhand bookshops and charity shops for bargain first editions; now every man and his dog can not only find out the market price for that musty old book they'd like to sell, but with the advent of the online auction they might even realise rather more than the market price if enough folk want it badly enough.
On the positive side of things, finding books I want is much easier, and less a matter of chance or pilrimage to Hay-on-Wye. But in a large part the romance has gone out it, and only occasionally can you sneak in under the radar and snap up a genuine bargain off ebay.
Last week, I thought I might have done just that. A copy of an old book of British bird's eggs by Butler, with colour plates by FW Frohawk. The subject matter of the book isn't something I can pretend to have an abiding interest in, but the artist is a particular favourite of mine. His butterfly books were revolutionary at the time he published them at the turn of the last century - a startling and hitherto unheard of combination of luminous and structurally accurate colour illustrations, and factually rigourous and comprehensive text detailing the life history of every single British species.
Frohawk's ability as an artist set him above his contemporaries, and his depictions of butterflies were novel in their accuracy compared to what had gone before. It didn't stop there. Birds, mammals, insects and inanimate objects (like eggs) were all grist to his peerless mill.
An abiding interest in butterflies means I've already got copies of his butterfly books (I was an entomologist way before the birding got hold of me), but given the chance to acquire some of his other work... well, I wasn't going to say no. Bidding started at a modest five pounds... and stuck there. For days. Seemingly nobody was biting.
Of course, we all know the score - rather than drive the price up over time, seriously interested parties wait until the very last minute (or seconds) before pitching in with their bids. I waited. And noted that the item had had very few views indeed - clearly not a popular choice. This looked promising.
More promising still a few minutes before the auction closed; some minor activity had seen the price rise, and stick for some time at the ten pound mark. And then... a few minutes later, the auction closed. Final selling price? Over a hundred quid. Bloody hell, how in god's name had that happened?
Two bidders had come in with seconds to spare, both pitching over a hundred pounds. One got the book. Why on earth spend that much for a book worth a fraction of the price in the usual scheme of things? A closer look at what these folk had for sale themselves revealed all - 'antique prints'. The fate of this book was now clear - the 24 colour plates would be excised, and the remainder of the book presumably discarded. The 'buy-it-now' going rate for a plate from this book? £20. So, 24 x £20 = £480. A nice return for a £100 investment, and you can see how it makes financial sense for somebody to do this.
Ebay's awash with 'antique prints', and not just natural history ones. How many books are sacrificed at this altar? Perhaps I'm naïve, but I had no idea this went on. It's a tragedy on two levels; the loss of a book itself, and the artificial inflation of price for these books in the process. Is this balanced by the pleasure more people will presumably derive from seeing a beautiful print hanging on their wall? That one book, that would be enjoyed by one person, will now make 24 prints to be appreciated by up to 24 people. Is this somehow better?
Ah well, that's me done. I've said my piece. Not a criticism of anyone buying and chopping up books. Just... a chastening revalation for me.
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April 03, 2006
Once Bittern, twice shy
There’s a definite feeling that Spring is in the air at last; actually, that’s kind of a lie, as this morning the Lang Kames had a sprinkling of snow on their northern faces, and there’s a chill north-westerly doing its damnedest to scorch the daffodils, but all the same, there’s change afoot.
Waders are very much in evidence all of a sudden, and there isn’t a field here that doesn’t now have a pair of Oystercatcher with muddy beaks mooching around it. More subtle, but far more evocative for me were the first drumming Snipe last week over the fields behind my house, and a Curlew this morning half-heartedly having a go at a towering display flight. The other failsafe sign of the sap rising is the return of summer-plumaged Red-throated Divers to freshwater.
West Loch (one of the two lochs near to the house) has had a busy couple of weeks recently. Red-throated Divers have returned, and a fortnight ago I found a Little Grebe puttering around the edge. Last weekend things ratcheted up significantly, with the finding of a Bittern on the road beside the loch. The road bit of that last sentence is a clue; none of us saw it alive, apart from presumably the driver of the car that it flew into. It now resides in BM’s freezer, presumably museum-bound. I’m afraid had I found it I’d have been rather less noble, and would have selfishly kept it for myself – a stuffed Bittern would have looked good in the study! As it was, walking the dogs with P and E on Saturday, I found a couple of under-feathers and this rather more striking example at the roadside:
The first I knew of this bird was a text last Monday from JL, and on Friday the JL Bittern Hotline rang again – this time a bird over at the westside of Mainland Shetland. And still alive! Having seen plenty while I lived in the south of England, and mindful of my vows not to twitch non-lifers on Shetland, I’ve not been to see it.
Bittern is a bloody good record for Shetland, and there’ve only ever been a dozen or so seen in the islands. The last was in the mid 80’s, so this is one for the Shetland listers. I’m content to stick to my patch of the island, and dream of things to come later this year. Additions to the patch-list so far this year are Little Grebe and last Tuesday an early Sandwich Tern, so the next one wants to be a bit rarer. Hoopoe maybe?
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