Weekly birding round-up: 15 - 21 Aug 2018
Another long, hot summer week interspersed with some overcast, occasionally showery bits was as true for the rest of Britain and Ireland as it was in Rutland where the 30th Birdfair took part over the weekend just gone. I think I must have met, at one point or another, just about every birder I’ve ever met in decades of birding – it seemed like everyone was there.
Happily for the week’s bird news, that was clearly not the case, as the news kept coming as the days wore on in the form of some usual summer fare, and an absolutely stellar bit of precognition by last week’s Rarity Round Up…
On the first occasion I visited Fair Isle, in the autumn of 1992, I was met from the plane at the island airstrip by an assistant warden from the observatory with the news that a Solitary Sandpiper had just been found on the island. As introductions go to that magical island, this was heady stuff – and, were I to keep a Shetland list, I’d be feeling pretty smug now in 2018 to think that, with exception of one subsequent sighting on Foula in 2009, I’d got something of a local blocker under my belt.
Were I to live on Scilly, of course, this would be a rather different story. Of the 37 accepted British records up to the end of 2016, no fewer than 14 birds have been on the Fortunate Isles. There’s simply nowhere better in Britain to find a Solitary Sandpiper than Scilly.
I’d like to say, then, that it’s not wholly unsurprising that our latest was found there this week, present on Tresco’s Great Pool on 15th-21st, but that’s to somewhat underplay last week’s Rarity Round Up suggestion of just this species in the coming days. The new week was barely a few hours old before Andy Stoddart’s perspicacious prediction had come to pass. I will need to up my game in the coming weeks!
So this latest Solitary Sandpiper gets Scilly’s land-based autumn account off to a flying start, and for now it just remains to be seen how long it sticks around – and what else is turned up on Scilly as the next few weeks unfold. We’ve all become inured to Scilly being an October-place, but of course back in the day it boasted some shockingly rare birds found in September – a glut of outstanding American warblers and, with half an eye to recent news from Iceland, an eye-catching Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. I wonder what would be found there if attention and feet on the ground shifted forwards a few weeks from October…
The week ended, as it began, with a startling bird from across the pond. It was not, however, quite as unequivocal as the aforesaid sandpiper as the bird in question, a juvenile American Black Tern discovered on 21st at Dungeness RSPB (Kent), inhabits the same sort of taxonomic no-man’s-land as another earlier feature of the headlines this year, the female Horned Lark that wintered in Surrey.
Which is to say, a bird that enjoys differentiable and discernible differences between what are currently considered to be subspecies – in this case, surinamensis and niger - of one larger species group, Black Tern.
Britain’s first, a juvenile at Weston-super-mare, on 3rd-11th October 1999, was well-documented in British Birds at the time, including a particularly handy checklist of the differences between surinamensis and nominate European run of the mill niger, not least the former’s distintinctive grey flanks. Subsequent well-documented records have followed.
The two subspecies were mooted, at the time, as good candidates for splitting into good species in their own right – but for now, surinamensis remains sub-specific. One, for anyone who hasn’t seen one yet in Britain, for the insurance lister…
As we might reasonably expect in the beating heart of August, it fell to seawatchers and pelagic vessels to provide the lion’s share of the week’s bird news, particularly in the form of another good crop of Wilson’s Petrels. As usual, sightings at sea dominated proceedings – the regular pelagic trips out of Scilly delivered 10 birds on 16th, followed by one on 17th, trios on 18th and 19th, and a single bird on 20th – while pelagic trips off Baltimore (Co.Cork) served up a quartet on 18th and a single bird on 19th; and four birds were seen four miles off Porthgwarra (Cornwall) on 18th. Even the venerable Scillonian III got in on the act, with a single bird seen from her rolling decks on 19th.
(For those of us of a certain vintage that will bring back (mostly) happy memories of the trips on her out into the Western Approaches in the 80s and 90s, when seeing a Wilson’s from land seemed an impossible pipedream and the boat offered the only reliable means to score. Things seem to have changed lately and, while pelagics are still the best option for one of these charming yellow-webbed patterers, sightings from land are annual now).
This week one such record came from Porthgwarra on 18th, while Irish sightings came from Cape Clear (Co.Cork) and Bridges of Ross (Co.Clare) on 15th; and Melmore Head (Co.Donegal) on 18th.
Two Leach’s Petrels were seen this week in Orkney from Birsay on 18th.
Large shearwater sightings spiked over the weekend, with peak counts of some 350 Cory’s and 750 Great Shearwaters logged from the Scilly pelagic on 18th. Overall, around 500 Cory’s and 1,600 Great Shearwaters were recorded nationally this week, with the anticipated westerly distribution of sightings.
Balearic Shearwaters meanwhile didn’t rise to such giddy heights, with some 200 birds in all noted nationwide – a handful of sites between Cornwall and Dorset scraped into double figures, with 38 birds seen off Start Point (Devon) on 19th the peak count this week. Just one bird seemed to have made it up the Channel and into the North Sea, being seen of Sidestrand (Norfolk) on 15th.
We had another handful of Long-tailed Skuas noted this week, with single birds seen off Bridges of Ross (Co.Clare) on 15th and 19th, Whitburn (Co.Durham) on 16th and 17th, and Porthgwarra (Cornwall) on 18th. On 20th one was seen from the Scilly pelagic; on 21st one passed Peterhead (Aberdeenshire).
Pomarine Skuas did rather better, with some 60 birds tallied as the week progressed – the hotspot by some margin being Bridges of Ross where a count of half a dozen on 16th was surpassed with 10 off there on 17th and 14 on 19th.
Our weekly wander through the long-legged beasties section of Round Up proceedings kicks off with a report of an adult Night Heron at Hoarwithy (Herefordshire) on 15th – but without any subsequent sightings, that may be best relegated to one that got away.
One that certainly didn’t fly in under the radar was a Purple Heron noted coming in off the sea at Hopton-on-Sea (Norfolk) on 17th; while in Dorset this week the juvenile bird remained on Studland at Littlesea on 16th-18th. The juvenile was once again noted at Rutland Water (Leicestershire) on 21st, while one was seen on the Somerset Levels that day also at Shapwick Heath NNR, with a third sighting on 21st coming from Norfolk at How Hill NR.
A Cattle Egret lobbed around the Lowestoft area of Suffolk on 15th-17th, while in Cheshire the settled individual remained at Burton Mere Wetlands RSPB on 15th-21st, and a singleton was noted in Hampshire at Farlington Marshes HWT on 18th. Catcott Lows NR (Somerset) was once again the most reliable and prolific site, with a peak count of 13 birds there on 18th; on 19th a flock of seven birds were seen flying past Orcombe Point (Devon) in the early morning. On 20th-21st one was present in Norfolk at Breydon Water, and one was seen at Fairburn Ings RSPB (West Yorkshire) on 20th-21st also. On 21st a probable was seen in flight in York over Rawcliffe park (North Yorkshire).
Great White Egret numbers remained fairly static, with some 80 birds noted nationally in the course of the week, and a peak count of eight birds coming from Ham Wall RSPB (Somerset) on 16th; while our other big white colonist, Spoonbills, totalled some 120 birds this week including a peak count of 31 at Stiffkey Fen (Norfolk) on 19th. Now we’re on the brink of the business end of the year, the busy weeks of autumn, and I’m going to be snowed under tallying up Yellow-browed Warblers and, hopefully, at least knee-deep in much rarer fare altogether, I’m making an executive decision to quietly drop both of these essentially resident breeding species from the weekly Rarity Round Up, at least for the immediate future. On the bright side, too many Great White Egrets and Spoonbills nowadays is a really pleasant problem to have!
That said, some species aren’t going anywhere any time soon in these columns and that’s never truer than with that perennial favourite, Glossy Ibis - sightings this week came from Devon where sightings of a single bird on the Taw estuary on 16th and Fremington Pill on 17th converged into two birds present at Exminster Marshes RSPB on 18th, with one again back at Fremington Pill on 20th. One spent 16th-21st on The Lizard (Cornwall) at Croft Pascoe Pool; and a bird was reported on 19th from Dowrog Common (Pembrokeshire).
A White Stork was noted over Titchwell RSPB (Norfolk) on 15th and, presumably, accounted for the juvenile noted the following day at Hemsby and Winterton.
Single Common Cranes were seen away from the usual places at Spurn (East Yorkshire) on 15th and Alkborough Flats NR (Lincolnshire) on 18th; four were at Ellon (Aberdeenshire) on 16th, with five at Meikle Loch on 20th; and on 20th one was seen at Blacktoft Sands RSPB (East Yorkshire).
Settled Spotted Crakes were very much a feature of the week just gone – birds remained at Grimsby (Lincolnshire) until 18th; Potter Heigham (Norfolk) and Burton Mere Wetlands RSPB (Cheshire) until 19th; Lackford Lakes SWT (Suffolk) and Low Newton-by-the-Sea (Northumberland) until 20th; and Gibraltar Point NNR (Lincolnshire ) until 21st. A further bird was present at Grove Ferry NNR (Kent) on 19th-21st.
An acid test of my impartiality and consistency landed on the RBA Rarity Roundup duckpond this week in the underwhelming form of an adult female Hooded Merganser discovered in Lerwick (Shetland) on 15th at Pullars Loch. For those unfamiliar with Pullars Loch, it’s a very small loch just down the road from our local Tesco, nestling hard against the seashore. It’s also, down the years I’ve lived in the islands and wandered down that particular road, proven a popular spot for people to dump the odd unwanted domestic goose or duck, not that this is, of course, in any way relevant to an apparently wild North American sawbill appearing there in the middle of summer 2018.
It appears to be fully winged and unringed and, who knows, despite the somewhat unpromising time of year it may have been lurking unseen here in Shetland for weeks or months. Pullars Loch is popular with dog walkers as well as duck-dumpers, but isn’t perhaps top of the list of places Shetland birders would check with any regularity. Or maybe it’s the female bird seen on August 3rd at Port Allen (Perth & Kinross), though what she’s doing heading north to Shetland would be anyone’s guess.
So, with just the merest nod to the inconsistency with which previous relatively recent records of drake Hooded Merganser and Wood Duck in Shetland have been treated by the relevant authorities, we’ll simply note that this latest female Hoodie appears to be doing nothing to harm her credentials for automatic acceptance as the latest addition to the growing British tally of accepted records, and was still present on Pullars Loch as the week drew to a close on 21st.
Back on the Scottish mainland, a white morph Snow Goose was hanging out with Greylags at Aberlady Bay (Lothian) on 18th-19th; and the drake Surf Scoter was once more in Lunan Bay (Angus) on 15th-18th.
Completing our tainted wildfowl love-in this week, we head south of the border to Essex where, at Abberton reservoir on 15th, the drake Ferruginous Duck was seen again. Matters grew a little murkier on 19th when an initial report of it again there transpired to be a hybrid Ferruginous x Tufted Duck.
Ducks. Gotta love ‘em.
And before we move onto less murky waters altogether, we’ve got the resident Pied-billed Grebe seen once more at Loch Feorlin (Argyll & Bute) this week on 20th.
With something of the calibre of Solitary Sandpiper present in Britain this week it wasn’t wholly surprising that we should get some more tasty North American shorebird action, and so it duly proved.
We’ll start in Suffolk where, at Minsmere RSPB on 18th-21st a juvenile Semipalmated Sandpiper was to be found. They’re such a classic autumn vagrant and a salutary reminder that every distant stint deserves a second and a third glance at this time of year.
At the opposite end of the country an adult White-rumped Sandpiper found Shetland’s Pool of Virkie much to its liking, remaining there from 15th-21st. One remained at Lower Rosses (Co.Sligo) on 18th-20th whilst, on 19th, another adult was reported from Potter Heigham Marshes (Norfolk).
On 19th-21st a Spotted Sandpiper was on Scilly on St Mary’s at Porth Hellick Pool.
The Pectoral Sandpiper remained in Northumberland at East Chevington on 16th; another was found on 20th in Ireland at The Gearagh (Co.Cork), with one more in Co.Cork on 21st near Macroom at Four Mile Bridge lagoon. On 21st one was found in Lancashire at Martin Mere WWT.
I think we can reasonably expect more of most if not all of the above in the coming few weeks – and the same goes for the next of this week’s offerings, American Golden Plover - the adult was again in Suffolk at Hazlewood Marshes SWT on 16th, with one noted on 18th at Skinflats Lagoons RSPB (Forth).
On a more European note altogether, the Marsh Sandpiper found late on 21st in Aberdeenshire on the Ythan estuary presumably relates to the same bird seen there earlier in the month – a big deal for Aberdeenshire birders as the last record – the only one for Aberdeenshire – dates back to 1990 when a bird spent two days on Collieston Loch in mid May.
Two Black-winged Stilts were reported on 15th in Essex at Heybridge Basin, but weren’t seen subsequently.
A Dotterel was on Luccombe Down (Isle of Wight) on 15th; two adults were in Norfolk near Felmingham on 20th.
Two Grey Phalaropes were seen on 20th from Bridges of Ross (Co.Clare) with another past there on 21st and, finally, delighting those visitors to the Birdfair who made the effort to go see it, a Red-necked Phalarope was present on Rutland Water on 15th-20th.
In Kent, the adult Bonaparte’s Gull remained for still another week at Oare Marshes KWT (Kent) – with a second adult bird present for good measure this week in northwest England, flirting with observers around Hoylake and Hilbre Island (Cheshire) on 15th-21st still. In the Western Isles the second-winter bird was once more seen on North Uist at Balranald RSPB on 15th-17th.
The second-winter Ring-billed Gull was also seen again this week in the Western Isles, on Vatersay on 19th still.
My favourite gull by a country mile was being seen once more this week, and nowhere more so than from Bridges of Ross (Co.Clare) where an adult Sabine’s Gull on 15th was followed with four birds there on 16th and a trio noted on 19th. Further Irish sightings came from Kerry Head (Co.Kerry) on 17th and Fanad Head (Co.Donegal) on 19th. On 19th one was seen from Pendeen (Cornwall), with another reported that day off Skye (Highland). Things kicked off marvellously on 20th with further sightings from the Scilly pelagic, where four adults were seen, and elsewhere birds noted at Rhalas Pond (Glamorgan) where an adult and a first-summer were logged; another from Bridges of Ross; one was off Gibraltar Point NNR (Lincolnshire); one was noted on St Kilda (Western Isles), remaining there on 21st; and finally, sadly, a dead adult was found inland at Grafham Water (Cambridgeshire). On 21st one was noted passing Seaham harbour (Co.Durham) with another distant possible that day off Whitburn CP, and one seen from the Scillonian.
Four widely scattered Glaucous Gulls were seen this week – on 15th in Amble harbour (Northumberland); on 16th at Llandulas (Conwy); on 17th still at Ullapool (Highland), and on 20th again on South Uist (Western Isles).
Finally, the adult Forster’s Tern once more at Soldier’s Point (Co.Louth) on 15th and again on 21st.
Not a huge amount to report where raptors were concerned this week, away from the usual sightings of two or three Honey Buzzards still present over Wykeham Forest (North Yorkshire) on 15th-17th, and at least one remaining there by 20th. Further sightings came on 15th from Surrey over Puttenham and Epsom and, on 21st, from Ogston reservoir (Derbyshire) and Headon (Nottinghamshire).
A little variety, however, was injected this week in the form of a Black Kite seen in Cornwall on 16th at Helston and a Montagu’s Harrier noted on 15th over Pegwell Bay (Kent); a probable Montagu’s Harrier ringtail was seen at Blacktoft Sands RSPB (East Yorkshire) in the afternoon of 20th.
St Kilda (Western Isles) provides us with the week’s only sighting of a Snowy Owl, in the form of the female bird still present there on 19th-21st.
Definitely a whiff of autumn in the air this week, with flickers of life in the embers of summer in the form of some early warblers and other passerines of note.
Most notable of the bunch would be the Western Bonelli’s Warbler seen at North Gare (Cleveland) on 17th-19th. There will, one would hope, be one or two more of these to come and, as always, hopes will remain high that we get another Eastern before too long.
More conventional early autumn fare came this week in the form of a Melodious Warbler trapped and ringed at Nanjizal Valley (Cornwall) on 18th, and followed by further individuals on 20th – one trapped and ringed on Calf of Man (Isle of Man), and another seen at Beachy Head (East Sussex), the latter bird remaining there the following day. On 20th-21st one was on Portland (Dorset) in the Observatory quarry.
An Icterine Warbler was at Easington (East Yorkshire) on 19th, with it or another there on 21st also; followed on 21st by one in Norfolk at Winterton Dunes.
A Greenish Warbler was found at the week’s end on 21st at Cromer golf course (Norfolk).
Fair Isle (Shetland) meanwhile landed an Arctic Warbler on 16th. These too will be coming to an east coast site near you in the coming weeks – this is just the vanguard.
Speaking of which, we had four Barred Warblers this week – in Shetland on Unst still at Norwick on 15th; at Covehithe (Suffolk) on 18th; and, on 19th, on Holy Island (Northumberland) and Fair Isle, the latter location’s bird remaining there the following day.
Once a staple of this time of year, but now properly rare fare, a wholly unconfirmed report of an Aquatic Warbler in Hampshire at Farlington Marshes HWT on 20th remained, unfortunately, ephemeral; as did the subsequent report of one at Lepe CP (Hamshire) the following day.
Further hints of what’s to come came in the always lovely form of three Wrynecks - at Rutland Water (Leicestershire) on 17th; in Kent, at Oare Marshes on 18th and Dungeness on 18th-20th; and in Hampshire at Hinton Ampner on 20th – and a Citrine Wagtail on St Mary’s (Scilly) on 19th-21st. A probable Citrine Wagtail was also heard in flight on 19th over Draycote Water (Warwickshire).
Flamborough (East Yorkshire) held onto a Red-backed Shrike until 18th; a further bird was seen in Suffolk on 17th at Shingle Street, and a possible was reported from Hengistbury Head (Dorset) on 21st. Dorset meanwhile scored emphatically with a juvenile Woodchat Shrike near West Bexington on 19th-20th, complete with some of the more improbable directions I’ve seen on a pager in a while: “south of Labour-in-vain Lane, in field east of Marco Polo House". That’s right up there with Dog-in-a-doublet for quirky English place-names that have hosted good birds this year…
An Alpine Swift was picked up and released in Exeter (Devon) on 17th.
Also black and white, but less unequivocally of wild origin, the Pied Crow remained at Flamborough (East Yorkshire) this week on 19th-21st.
Rose-coloured Starlings provide a final dash of colour to the week’s news – one on Tiree (Argyll & Bute) on 17th-20th had been present there since 14th; an adult bird was present on Achill Island (Co.Mayo) on 16th-20th; and meanwhile in the Western Isles the adult bird remained on Lewis in Stornoway on 19th and, on 20th-21st, one remained still on St Kilda.
Less colourful altogether, a Common Rosefinch was seen briefly on Fair Isle (Shetland) early on 21st.
And last but not least, an Ortolan Bunting was found on 21st over Goring Gap (West Sussex), with another identified from a sound recording made in the small hours of 21st in the vicinity of Poole Harbour (Dorset).
The bulk of our overseas bird news, such as it was this week, came from Scandinavia – in Sweden the Steller’s Eider remained on Oland on 15th-17th while, in Denmark, the adult Pacific Diver was still off Skagen on 15th-20th.
In Germany a Black Vulture was present on 20th at Gedern.
Further afield, in Israel the Yellow-billed Kite remained at Eilat on 20th.
Following Andy’s superb piece of Solitary Sandpiper divination last week was never going to be easy. Frankly, I don’t know if I should even try…
…but, eternal optimist and glutton for punishment that I am, I’ll have a wild stab or two in the dark.
It’s still very much wader o’clock out there and, while the statistics say we’ll have more White-rumped, Semipalmated and perhaps a Baird’s Sandpiper, a more popular choice might be a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper - it’s been six years since our last British example (on Orkney), and the coming week offers no fewer than eight historic records from a grand British total of just 32 accepted birds as cause for some hope.
But the last week of August can be, if the birding gods smile upon us, all about the seabirds. While there are doubtless many who’d welcome a chance at the increasingly rare Barolo Shearwater, a Fea’s Petrel feels like almost a nailed on certainty. Keep an eye on those weather charts, and keep your fingers crossed you’re in the right place at the right time…
Jon Dunn
22 August 2018
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