Terry Smith's Bird Update

Scilly 1980 continued.......

We were up early the next morning and the Booted Warbler showed well. We were able to get good views of the bird before the St Mary's crowd shattered our peace. Now that the bird had been confirmed (remember that this was a RARE bird in those days), we relaxed a little, but not enough to prevent us from hijacking one of the boats which had delivered one of the St Mary's contingent and travelling over for another useless attempt to see the Red-eyed Vireo. I missed the bird by seconds and by the middle of the afternoon I was a bit wee-wee'd off! Another Lesser Yellowlegs for the autumn on Porthellick Pool was scant compensation for a possible lifer. Back to 'Aggie' for another look at the Booted. The next day dawned sunny and warm. We went down to the quay and commandeered a speedboat which had brought over four souls from St Mary's. Well, I've travelled by some novel methods in my quest for birds over the years, but this must go down as one of the most bizarre ways of getting to a new bird! We climbed into individual tiny 'cockpits' and pulled spray covers round our necks, thus protecting our our bodies and more importantly our optics from the spray. We were over to St Mary's before you could say 'Red-eyed Vireo' and I guess we only touched the water about eight times between the islands! Wow!
We were soon at Lower Moors and I hovered between two likely spots for two hours, before someone actually spotted the vireo in a large sallow bush, feeding in the same scope view as a Yellow-browed Warbler. Mission accomplished! We had another look at the yellowlegs and the airfield supplied me with my second ever Richard's Pipit. Things felt much better now.
The next three days the weather produced cool north-easterlies and a fair amount of rain and not much in the way of new birds for the islands, but come our last day, it was back down to the quay for another nice rough boat ride! Seeing my companions were looking a bit GREEN again, I decided to polish off a nice large piece of sticky chocolate cake mid way across. I don't think I was too popular as they all suddenly looked away and went rather a delicate shade of YELLOW in the face! Still, we soon arrived on St Mary's and I struck out for the airport, where I stowed my baggage and then went off like a madman. I was on a mission, and I reckoned if I could pull it off, I would have three more lifers under my belt before my flight back to the mainland. O.K. so they were tarts' ticks but as I said in a previous rambling everyone has to start somewhere and 1980 was my year. Firstly I bombed up to Peninnis, where an Ortolan Bunting found its way on to my lifelist. This one was easy - I just walked up to the bird which was showing down to a few feet. Having grilled the bird for about half an hour, I then jogged over to Holy Vale, where after a few minutes wait, an Icterine Warbler gave itself up easily in the top of a large tree. Acting on the latest info, I then charged up to the airfield again, where I had about an hour to go before my flight. Typically the last bird was a little bugger! Although it was 'only' a Snow Bunting it was not easy to find and kept itself hidden in the heather by the clifftop. I eventually found the bird after half an hour's search, and even managed to put my companions on to it before catching our flight. Yes, even Snow Buntings were a tick in those days, but you have to remember that at the time I lived in Wiltshire, hardly a county you could say had many Snow Buntings turning up! Anyway, I was as pleased as punch with my efforts and it was a happy bunny that left on his flight back over to Penzance that afternoon.
On a different note and bringing us up to today, it's good to see that a bird I had long ago predicted back then in 1980 as a probable future addition to the British list, turn up at last - Masked Shrike! Let's hope that it's still there for those who are travelling for it tonight. What an autumn for good birds so far. Masked Shrike, Rufous-tailed Robin and Chestnut-eared Bunting all new for Britain. An Ovenbird that was twitchable (lucky I saw one in Florida!), a C.C.C. again after twenty years (yep, I saw that bird in Essex back in 84), Purple Martin and goodness knows what else has ensured that most serious twitchers are in chronic debt! How the devil do you guys PAY for all that travelling, I couldn't have managed it, EVEN WHEN I WAS YOUNG, FREE AND SINGLE!