Finders-in-the-Field: Rufous-tailed Robin, Fetlar
I need a camera. With good environmentalist intentions I’ve always successfully talked myself out of buying one and becoming stuck on the inbuilt obsolescence-dictated photography equipment upgrade treadmill. Nobody had cameras when I started birding, I’ve always told myself, so why get one now? Well that, and the fact that after deciding I needed a PhD in order to work with birds, I’ve returned to being a student again, first to do an MSc and latterly a PhD. Not only that, but I’ve become a single dad along the way. In other words, cash hasn’t been exactly plentiful, either!
And it was the submission (thank goodness) of my PhD thesis at the end of September that led, at the last minute, to me joining my pals John ‘BBRC’ Sweeney, George ‘Richard Branson’ White and Iain ‘Paisley Cape May’ McDonald for a fortnight of birding on Shetland. After the emotional rollercoaster of a PhD I really needed to de-stress…
We’d had a great start to the trip and were on something of a winning streak. Within an hour after arriving on the Northlink ferry I’d found a barred warbler in Lerwick outside the youth hostel. Then, after twitching the near-touchable Sumburgh semipalmated sandpiper, John and I jointly found a gorgeous olive-backed pipit in the sunshine at Quendale. A day or so following our arrival on Fetlar I found an American golden plover, despite the predominant easterlies. While watching a short-toed lark at Tresta, I received a message from James Hanlon asking me to give him a heads-up if I found a Siberian blue or rufous-tailed robin. I replied with a crying-with-laughter emoji and a thumbs up. As if, James!
But I wasn’t prepared for the events of the late afternoon of 6th October. The easterlies had strengthened. It was pretty blowy. Things had been dropping in – thrushes, robins, chiffchaffs, pied flycatchers, redstarts and whinchats. News came through of a red-flanked bluetail on mainland Shetland and an Isabelline wheatear on nearby Out Skerries. We felt, we knew, Fetlar was hosting something rare. There was a precious hour of daylight left. We returned to our base at Houbie after thoroughly thrashing the east of the island. John said he’d go and check the Feal Plantation and I said I’d do our garden at the Lodge, which boasted several sycamores and bushes. Then something - I don’t recall what - happened and John somehow ended up doing our garden, with me heading off to the plantation instead.
Fair Isle, Shetland Oct 2004 © Rebecca Nason
Britain: 3 accepted records
2011: 14 Oct : Warham Greens, Norfolk
2010: 2 Oct : North Ronaldsay, Orkney (dead)
2004: 23 Oct : Fair Isle, Shetland
Western Palearctic: 2 accepted records
2012: 14 Oct : Bornholm, Denmark
2005: 30 Dec: Podlaskie, Poland
The plantation is a short walk from Fetlar’s Interpretive Centre at Houbie and on reaching the small thicket of deciduous trees I stopped and scanned it from the outside. A yellow-browed warbler – a regular occurrence – was on the outside of the thicket with an apparently newly arrived European robin actively feeding not far away. I clambered over the barbed wire fence once more to head into the thicket itself – surely at least a red-breasted flycatcher would be sheltering in it? I walked through the thicket but apparently nada. I then turned around to look back at the cover I’d been through. Bang. My attention was caught by a small warm-toned chat with a blotchy / smoky breast pattern perched at about shoulder height. All that was mainly visible initially was the bird’s head and breast and my first thought was that it was a thrush nightingale – nice one! Then, the bird, apparently loosely accompanying the robin (it appeared slightly smaller than the robin), flew down, close to ground level at point blank range. Cue panic. This was no sprosser. This thing was raising its reddish tail to an angle of about 45° and lowering it with a spine-tingling shivering motion. Holy crap! The initial impression was of something with the front half resembling a particularly blotchy thrush nightingale and the rear a hermit thrush. The bird had a conspicuous pale eyering, a large black eye and before the eye both the hint of an eyestripe and a very restricted supercilium (i.e., both before the eye only) and some hint of malar / lateral throat markings which were vaguely reminiscent of a bluethroat, though lacking the complete eyestripe, supercilium and central throat pattern of that species. The breast appeared blotchy at first, but on closer study was delicately scalloped as a result of smoky grey-brown edgings to the paler centres of the breast feathers. The remiges and tail stood out by being considerably warmer in tone than the mantle / scapulars, the latter being similar in tone to the European robin. The general tone of the remiges and tail were reminiscent of hermit thrush. But this was no Catharus. This bird had an all-dark bill, a short tail and primary projection and, of course, it lacked the spotting on the breast of hermit thrush. Although the bird was clearly an old world chat, veery could also be eliminated due to the ground colour of the breast lacking the buffy / yellow tones and the mantle / scapulars lacking the bright rufous tones of that species, as well as due to tail and wing length being shorter than in that species. The bird clearly wasn’t a nightingale either, being proportionately shorter tailed, slightly too well-marked about the face and too scalloped on the breast for thrush nightingale in particular.
James’ prophecy had eerily come true. Any racing tips mate?! I was face to face with one of those two rare robins, neither of which I had any experience. I tried to ring John using sausages for fingers. No signal. I carefully and quietly left the thicket and climbed up the bank of the Feal burn, clutching fistfuls of grass as I powered up a near-vertical slope. I never knew I possessed such climbing capabilities. I announced to John in stunned tones: “John. I’ve found…a rare bird.” “What is it?” “It’s either a Siberian blue robin or a rufous-tailed robin.” John, with his usual cool-as-a-cucumber demeanour replied “Okay, I’ll be there asap”. Thankfully I had an internet connection. I Googled Siberian blue robin. No. That wasn’t right. I was looking at pictures of something rather hefty with a strong bill. Then rufous-tailed robin. My bird was staring back at me from my phone (a gadget that I’ve recently grudgingly acquired). I had just found a bird of the same species that my old workmate Alan Bull had been involved in finding the first for the Western Palearctic on Fair Isle over a decade ago. I rang James. Much of that conversation was unprintable. Someone else had to see it. John quickly arrived and I advised he go and sit on the edge of the thicket. It surely had to reappear and it had after all, seemed quite confiding. My stomach was in knots as I waited for what felt like aeons outside the thicket, anticipating the clack of John’s SLR. That clack never came. The light was starting to go. I checked the small pine stand at the other end of the plantation to no avail. George and Iain arrived, Iain apparently missing part of his trousers following an altercation with a particularly obstinate barbed wire fence. But there was no further sign of the bird. It had evaporated. Disappeared. I didn’t know what to feel. I’d just been up close and personal with an absolute monster sibe but no-one else had seen it. Part of me wished I’d never seen it. What if John had done the plantation and me the garden, as we’d originally planned? The atmosphere in our cottage that night was, well, somewhat strained. I put the news out and the birding world was understandably hyped, although I wasn’t optimistic that the bird would be found again. For the rest of the night my phone was constantly buzzing with messages of congratulations and requests for directions. I didn’t sleep particularly well.
The next day, which happened to be my birthday, around 40 folk from elsewhere on Shetland braved what were now easterly gales to arrive at the plantation in the early morning, but, as seems to be the case with vagrants of this species, it was a one-day wonder. I felt especially bad for John as he is such a great friend and has been there for me in good times and bad. I had abysmally failed to refind the bird, a fourth for Britain and sixth for the Western Palearctic, for my mates. How had it melted away? How, exactly, was this supposed to be an antidote to the stress of submitting a thesis?! Roger Riddington was very supportive, despite this no doubt being painful for him after missing the Fair Isle bird, telling me I was a very lucky man.
So, I’ve given in. I’m now in the hunt for a decent camera (it has to be second hand at least) to be ready for when lightning strikes twice…any tips as to what to buy would be greatly appreciated!
Andrew Tongue
17 October 2019
Share this story
