Aurora borealis: June 2006 Archives

June 13, 2006

Paddyfield Warbler (inc photos)

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Really haven't felt like adding to this recently after inadvertantly causing offence to a birder elsewhere in Shetland and being on the receiving end of some personally offensive comments on the blog, but life goes on and there's nothing like a good bird on your home patch to cheer you up and make you realise you don't give a toss about ill-informed slander. So... a bolt out of the blue last night on my way home; a missed call on my mobile from JL. This had come through while I was on the ferry, where the signal is patchy at best and mostly non-existent. I had a shrewd suspicion that this wasn’t a call asking if I wanted to watch Mongolia play Afghanistan or whatever obscure line-up the world cup group stages had on offer in the evening… I had to drive some way from the ferry once we’d landed before I could get a signal and speak to JL. I was expecting this to be a Red-footed Falcon as there’d been a couple elsewhere in Shetland in the past 24 hours, but the reality was far better:

“There’s a Paddyfield Warbler in the plantation”

I had to do a couple of chores elsewhere on the island, before driving home to collect the camera from P. Took the dogs for a breathless run down the road to the plantation, and met up with JL and B driving the bushes – no sooner had I arrived than B flushed the bird, and it was in his mistnet. And sure enough, JL had struck the jackpot again – a beautiful Paddyfield Warbler.

JL went off to round up a few folk who’d be interested to see it, and in the meantime B processed the bird while I played secretary and took the description. I just hope he can read my writing in his ringing book.

A few quick photographs, and the bird was released into the plantation. Oh, and the news was out onto the local grapevine as soon as the i.d was confirmed in the hand. Funny, that. Unless of course we’ve been sitting on this one since last September...