Finders-in-the-field: Red-winged Blackbird, North Ronaldsay, Orkney Apr 2017
After seemingly weeks of endless blazing strong W/NW/N winds bringing snow and hail most days we were overjoyed when the wind finally swung round to the east but after a day of slack weather it had picked up again to a cold force 6-7...but it was from the east! I had had a pretty decent morning carrying out the northern census route with some wildfowl moving offshore, some pristine full summer Snow Buntings, a Black Redstart and a Merlin which caught a Starling right in front of me; I was walking back past the house at Garso with my mind half on what we had to do in the afternoon to get the Obs ready for tomorrow’s Heatherlea tour group when a strange little ‘chup’ call spun me round in time to see a Starling sized bird land on top of some gas bottles outside the house.
I could just see its head poking out with a broad supercillium, yellowish throat, streaked chest and pointed bill; my brain stuttered for a second as I went to myself ‘ohh, Redwing, no, yes, NO’! I took a few steps to my right and could see the whole bird about 15m away it was indeed a chunky passerine with dark crown, broad, flaring supercillium, yellowish at the front, dark eye-stripe, yellowish chin patch with dark, bold streaks down the front being slightly thinner in the centre - calidus Peregrine style, bizarrely popped into my head! The two, white wing-bars were also obvious as was the chestnut scapulars and mantle, it was a stunning bird despite being just brown and streaky!
I then swore to myself ‘what the hell is that?’ and looked closer at it, in and out of my camera, while trying to work it out in my head; my jumbled thoughts ran something like ‘look at that bill, looks like an American Oriole, but it’s not one of those, but it must be American, what else is like that, some kind of Blackbird / Grackle thing, no Grackles are bigger, must be a Blackbird, which ones have I seen, Red-winged in Texas, no others, but there are others, females are dark and streaky like that, GOD, it might actually be a Red-winged Blackbird….’
It then flew up after a few minutes with a really distinctive floppy flight with a crazy fan shaped tail which also flopped around as it flew up onto the wires, where it perched for a minute or so before dropping down into a nearby Iris bed. I then found some shelter from the wind and began to phone the Obs volunteers that were working other parts of the island with a message of something like ‘odd bird at Garso, its American and mega, not 100% what it is but best guess is Red-winged Blackbird’ (to which Larissa helpfully asked ‘is it black with red wings’? ‘no’ I said!).
I had now lost the bird and some tramping around failed to re-find it before Sam, Larissa and Harris arrived; after what seemed like ages but was probably only 15 minutes it flew up from the Irises to make a beeline straight back to the gas bottles where we all had excellent views, Larissa, being Canadian was probably best placed to help with the ID tentatively agreed with my first thoughts as did Pete Donnelly who arrived shortly afterwards. I then tweeted (how, apparently, its done nowadays) back of the camera pictures out into the world and that was that!
Kevin Woodbridge and Alison Duncan were off island for the day (as they always are when rare birds are found!) but they arrived back on the last scheduled flight of the day and soon had great views as it followed the same pattern of heading to the gas bottles. The phones were red hot for the rest of the evening with people booking in, making plans and congratulating us while we just sat back and relaxed with a beer or two!
The first planes arrived at 09:30 the next morning and with the bird sticking to its routine everyone connected and had great views; there were some adverse internet comments regarding the organised flushes which occurred a minimum of 1.5 hours apart (usually much longer than that) and was undertaken by just one Obs staff member at a time but this strategy was designed to minimise disturbance to the bird, the habitat and the privately owned land it was on, with the alternative being every plane load of folks fanning out and trampling through the area disturbing breeding birds and the aforementioned RWB.
As I write this on the third day, it’s still present with everyone who has come having a great and successful time of it with the phones still red hot, full of more bookings, newspapers and radio stations all wanting a piece of this potential first for the UK and Western Palearctic!
Simon Davies
North Ronaldsay Bird Observatory
03 May 2017
Range of Red-winged Blackbird
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