There are dream birds and then there are dream birds which, no matter how many begin to appear, no matter how many birders begin to catch up with them will forever remain a cherished prize for the rarity hunter.
Everyone will have tucked away at the back of their mind, a small, select list of birds that they would dearly love to encounter - be it a great patch bird, a new county bird perhaps or a stone-wall mega of the utmost quality.
Given the sheer volume of participants who take part in the sport of twitching, there’s little surprise in the obvious fact that very few of those involved will have the good fortune to chance upon a “once-in-a-lifetime” find - and even fewer of those will be in the right place at the right time, having paid their dues to the Birding Rare Gods, to see their numbers align to hit the jackpot.
These days your odds increase dramatically if you head north to an off-island and if you play yours cards right on Shetland, the deck will deal you a five-card draw where the ace is high…and, in this case, the colour on the card was red…
It was all set up for Shetland to land an absolute stormer. Orkney had just landed that gorgeous male Eyebrowed Thrush and although Shetland had obliged with a set of American landbirds and that monstrously fine White’s Thrush (with a second less than a day away), it seemed as though something special was in the offing. The weather had changed and what happened next had been seen coming in the tail end of the roundup for the last week of September…
”…the Northern Isles would seem to be the place to keep an eye on while the weather shifts around - the gloves are off right now and any “Sibe” could smash their way in to our consciousness.”
And, as we know, so it did, thanks to the dazzling afternoon discovery by Dan Pointon of a beautiful adult male Siberian Rubythroat at the north end of Levenwick on the Shetland mainland, just before the clock tick-tocked itself towards 4pm on 3rd - becoming our earliest ever Rubythroat record in the process.
At the time, I waffled on about the WOW! Factor, the F*ck Me Factor (again, please excuse the swerve towards the Anglo-Saxon vernacular) that remains well to the fore where this magnificent species, this marvellous, oft-dreamt of Far Eastern traveller is concerned but, thanks to Mainland Shetland’s most recent cut-throat gem, this is a species that is, slowly-but-surely (whisper it…ever-so-quietly) ever-so-slightly, devalued in recent times.
A steady procession of birders, both residents and visitors, made their way to Levenwick during the course of the following six days and even if they had to wait for a few hours (some waiting a few days for “the complete view”), almost everyone went home happy.
When the bird showed, amongst all the scrummaging and scrimmaging, above the appreciative “ooo’s” and “aaaaah’s” and clicks and whirrs from the motor drives of the multiple camera lenses trained on it, the sheer beauty of the bird was vivid and clear for all to see.
Amongst the throng was new Lerwick resident Rebecca Nason and, on her fourth visit she duly captured, without doubt, the definitive image of the species (within the UK at the very least) - an image which is clearly, hands-down the Rarity Photograph of The Year…
You can, of course, read all about how Rebecca obtained the shot here
That Siberian Rubythroat is getting commoner, an indisputable fact but (major drawback coming…) Shetland remains the only place go. There will be another mainland east coast bird but for the moment, as you’d perhaps expect, Shetland reigns supreme - nine of the eleven British records appearing there over the past almost four decades (most strikingly, four of them arriving in the last four years…) since the first was found on Fair Isle on October 9th 1975.
A gap of 22 years followed until the second - the remarkable, much debated, much discussed and (still) doubted (in terms of precisely where it actually came from) male at Osmington Mills in Dorset on October 19th 1997. Shetland’s second (and Britain’s third) a freshly dead male, was as a roadside casualty near Bixter, on the Shetland Mainland on October 25th 2001 before Fair Isle’s second, a three-day first-winter female was seen in October 2003.
The past decade has seen seven more arrive - a very good average that - (nine in all since the turn of the 2000’s) with Fair Isle collecting another first-winter female between October 23rd-27th 2005, to be followed by the east coast’s sole representative to date, the suppressed first-winter female in a garden in Sunderland late in October 2006.
Shetland’s next bird, a stunning male, peeked out of the Foula iris beds on October 5th 2007 and, four October’s later came that monster male in the gardens of Gulberwick, being the first one to linger in to double figure days - present from October 18th-30th 2011 and well twitched by many.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the female the following year on Fair Isle (that particular island’s fourth Rubythroat and the second to linger beyond the 10-day mark - this one managing 12, between October 23rd to November 3rd 2012) didn’t draw the crowd it might have done and neither did the male found on Fair Isle in the third week of October 2013.
A mainland bird does feel overdue and it always feels as though Flamborough, Spurn, maybe Wells Woods, Gibraltar Point or perhaps Landguard could be the place that enables 100’s to get a crack at one without the extreme expense of Shetland. That day is a long time coming though…
…but with those nine records of this beautiful (now) Lavivora within the past 13 years, that day may not be quite so far away as it often feels…
What’s next at the Holiday Table? We’re back in to the double acts again as a remarkable day in October brings the memories flooding back.
With special thanks to Rebecca Nason and Hugh Harrop for supplying their brilliant images of the Levenwick Rubythroat and Steve Williams for his video of the same bird. Also thanks to Chris Batty, Tommy Hyndman, Kevin Kelly and Stuart Piner for their images of other Shetland Rubythroats.
Mark Golley
02 January 2015
Thanks to Oriole Birding for sponsoring The 12 Birds of Christmas 2014
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