Phenomenal shearwater passage in the Sea of the Hebrides

To be honest I did have an inkling of what today might bring when I wrote yesterdays blog post! A birder on yesterdays crossing from Castlebay to Oban had reported 25 great shearwaters from the ferry between Tiree and Rum, so I was hopeful that we might also get to see a few of these wonderful ocean wanderers this morning. Perhaps we'd get lucky, even one bird would suffice, but as it transpired, today was one of the greatest experiences in my birding life. Nothing could have prepared me for this spectacle!

It was still dark when MV Isle of Lewis left Castlebay one hour early at 7am. For the first 30 minutes we sat in the viewing lounge and could see nothing through the windows except blackness, but then at about 7:40 in the half light we spotted a couple of auks and at least one shearwater. This immediately piqued our interest because as I joked to Ray, we'd already seen more than we had seen on the entire journey out two weeks ago! A slight exaggeration perhaps, but the fact is, this was the sixth time we had taken this route at this time of year and virtually all of the previous journeys had been disappointing with very few sea birds, so these few scraps so early into the voyage prompted us to go up on deck immediately.

As soon as we arrived on deck we spotted another couple of shearwaters. The first was definitely sooty but the other seemed to have a white belly but didn't look like Manx. A few minutes later another bird with a white belly, this time closer to the boat, and with the light now better we were able to tentatively identify it as a great shearwater. Then there was another even closer and this time we could see it's pale collar and dark cap, no doubt about this one, a definite great shearwater!

Ten minutes later and we'd lost count of great shearwaters! We watched in wonder as a flock of over 50 approached the rear of the boat and then overtook us, every one of them a great. And still they came, next a flock of 20 with a few sooties, and it was still only 8am, just three minutes after sunrise. Over the next 45 minutes we watched as hundreds of great shearwaters went past the boat plus many sooties, but only a handful of Manx. We also spotted at least three large shearwaters lacking the dark cap of greater, clearly Cory's shearwaters, although the pedantic may comment that they could have been the much rarer Scopoli's. 

The last day

It's been a tough two weeks on Barra, the least productive of the three years we have been coming here, and though yes we have seen some good birds, it's generally been slow gowing and very samey. Still there's always next year. 

Highlights today were white-tailed eagle, hen harrier and 200 barnacle geese passing through the Sound of Barra, but nothing new for the trip. Tomorrow the ferry leaves Castlebay before dawn so there'll be nothing new for the island, just whatever seabirds we might see on the crossing..... 

Ring Ouzel at Glen in 14819mph winds

This afternoon we found a cracking 1st winter male ring ouzel at Glen, initially flushed from a ditch at the side of the road. Glen is a good place for seeing this species when they pass through Barra, and last year we saw a male here. Also at Glen we had adult white-tailed and golden eagles overhead. Brambling at Northbay was another highlight, an island tick for us.

Greenland Redpoll at Creachan, Barra

This redpoll was at Creachan wood today. It was clearly a large bird, but unfortunately we had no other redpolls nearby for direct comparison. However, it has the three dark lines or "cats claws" on the flanks reaching all of the way down to the dark centred tertials and it immediately made me think Greenland redpoll Acanthis flammea rostrata. 

Unfortunately the redpolls are a bit of a quagmire so definite identification is difficult at the best of times and impossible in this case. To me this is clearly not a "British" lesser redpoll cabaret, it's far too big and heavily streaked for that, but there is the possibility that it could be the Icelandic race icelandica. This race is very similar to rostrata and the two are sometimes grouped as northwestern redpoll. However, rostrata is far more migratory than icelandica and most northwestern redpolls which come to the UK are considered to be rostrata for that reason. So I'll have to be content with calling this bird a northwestern redpoll, but in all likelihood it's a Greenland redpoll rostrata.

The cats claws are the three parallel dark lines that you can see on the birds flanks. Crucially they reach the undertail coverts.

A bit of star gazing

This evening the skies were clear so I went outside for an hour at 10pm. Here on Barra light pollution is at an absolute minimum and once I cleared the nearby houses, it was pitch black and the sky was full of stars. To the north I could see the dancing Northern Lights, nowhere near as bright or as colourful as you see in photos, I only ever seem to see a dull greenish glow to the north, but still a great sight. I think the best display would have been last night, but we didn't have the clear skies then. In one memorable moment, what looked like a spotlight appeared low on the horizon and shone a green beam of light across the sky. It was almost like some huge rock concert happening to the north. Then the spotlight disappeared and all was black again.

Except that all wasn't black, because much more impressive than the Northern Lights, overhead was the amazing Milky Way. The only time that I have seen this so well before was in New Zealand in 2020. Looking at it through binoculars it's just a staggering amount of stars forming what looks to the naked eye like a grey misty band across the black sky. 100–400 billion stars apparently make up the Milky Way, and at least that number of planets. 

Then over the east I could see the planet Jupiter glowing bright, the biggest planet in our solar system who's gravitational pull can be felt here on earth. Tonight I could even see a couple of its moons through binoculars. As I watched, a shooting star appeared, it shot across the sky and then went out as quickly as it had appeared. Time for bed.

A day of passage on Barra

Passage is picking up with whooper swans and barnacle geese starting to pass over in increasing numbers, all coming in off the Atlantic ocean to the west and heading east/south east. Whoopers breed in Iceland and the barnacles nearly twice that distance in Greenland. Most barnacles stop off in Iceland on their journey to Scotland, but even so these swans and geese have travelled over 1000km (600 miles) of open sea to get to Barra which is the first land they have seen since they left home. They don't rest on the sea they just do it in one go, and yet even so when the reach here, very few land on Barra, they just keep on going until they reach the Inner Hebridean islands such as Islay a further 150km (90 miles) south east. This is awe-inspiring visible migration and one of the highlights of an October trip to Barra.

Barnacle geese passing over.

Yellow-browed bonanza as the first wave of barnacles arrives

A glorious sunny day with light winds... errr no. The weather forecast was wrong! It certainly started glorious, but it rapidly deteriorated to low cloud and drizzle.

A decent days birding though, we finally caught up with a barred warbler at Nask and the yellow-browed warbler bonanza continues, we saw five of the 14 on the island today, and were lucky enough to be present when two were trapped and ringed at Creachan. Also today, the start of the barnacle goose passage over the island, with 21 over Eoligarry.

Weighing less than a wren, yellow-browed warblers are tiny birds that breed not much closer than China, yet turn up in the UK in increasing numbers every year.

When we were here two years ago a North American Swainson's thrush was caught in Creachan wood and before that it produced Barra's only White's thrush, plus lots of other good stuff. Still, you can't see too many yellow-browed warblers, fabulous birds.

A first for Barra on Castlebay football pitch

A major twitch on Barra today when a first for the island turned up in the shape of a cattle egret. Strangely it wasn't on the machair grasslands in amongst the cattle, it was on Castlebay football pitch in the middle of the town next to the co-op with herring gulls!

This is presumably the same bird that was on Tiree two days ago when it became just the second record for that island.

Little and large at Creachan Woods, Barra

A grim day on Barra, with 45mph south easterly winds and at times heavy, soaking drizzle. You only had to be outside for 30 seconds and you were soaked. 

However there were drier spells and on one such occasion we found ourselves at Creachan woods where  we were reasonably well sheltered from the wind, allowing us to have quite a pleasant walk for 90 minutes or so before the rain set in again.

Treecreepers are just about annual on Barra so it was pleasing to be able to add one to our trip list today. Apparently this bird turned up in September but where it originates from is uncertain, it could be a migrant from Europe or perhaps it's a dispersing bird from the Scottish mainland.

Two yellow-browed warblers have been in the wood for a few days and showed well today. They were quite vocal which always helps to locate them, in fact it's pretty much essential. 

Arcing sooty shearwaters past Brevig

A dull drizzly day of strong south easterly wind so we headed again for Brevig and another look at the sooty shearwater passage down the east of the island. It wasn't as easy today, with distant mist making viewing difficult or impossible. However occasionally the shearwaters came a little closer or the mist cleared for a while and we did manage to see at least 15 birds.

A useful characteristic of sooty shearwater is that in strong winds they tend to glide in long graceful arcs, shearing low over the water and then rising high into the air before dropping again. This distinguishes them from Manx shearwater even at long distances. I've seen quite a few sooties in the past but never knowingly seen this flight action before so the past couple of days have been very educational. 

They also have a different wing shape to Manx, having longer and narrower wings. Of course they also have dark bellies and silvery underwings but seeing that on a dull day in strong winds at a range of two miles is quite a challenge! Still, I'm pretty sure that all of the birds we have seen did have dark bellies.

Sooty shearwater passage and a few eagles, Barra

Barra isn't only about rarities, thankfully. There's also plenty of resident birds to keep you entertained if the rares don't show up, as is the case at the moment. Today we saw four eagles, three white-tailed and a single golden, male hen harrier and three great northern divers. The white-tailed eagles in particular can be very obliging and are often seen well. The bird in the photos flew low over the church at Eoligarry.

White-tailed eagles have proportionally long necks when compared to golden eagles, which gives them a very different jizz, but to be honest there's not really much chance of confusing the two, with white-tailed appearing much larger.

One of the reasons I love this island is that you get to experience some impressive passage. Barnacle geese and whooper swans are yet to come, hopefully next week, and we also get other species that you might not expect arriving from over the sea, such as flocks of snipe. Highlight of the day today was the passage of sooty shearwaters which went down the east coast of the island, heading south in their hundreds. 508 in total were logged, one of the highest counts ever. Although I've seen sooty shearwaters many times before, I've never experienced anything quite like this.

This video is a very short zoomed in section of the previous video. Three birds arc across the screen and are obviously shearwaters. I noticed straight away that at least one of them had a large amount of white on its belly, but which species? Manx is the obvious answer, yet nine days later we discovered that there was a flock of over 1000 great shearwaters between Barra and Coll when only single figures of Manx were seen. So could these be great shearwaters? Well, the first thing is, from the video I would say that they look big and long winged. Difficult to judge though because they were so far out. I recorded the original video on 60x optical through the scope and 2x digital on the phone, so a combined magnification of 120x. These birds were probably around 3.5km distant (2 miles). 

This is about the clearest screen grab I can get from the video. The original was at 120x, this has been cropped to within an inch of it's life! At a rough estimate I would say that this must be around at least 300x magnification and any attempt at identification must bear this in mind. Yet clearly it's a shearwater from the flight action in the video, clearly it has a white belly and underwing, it appears to have dark undertail coverts and may even have a dark neck patch. I wouldn't claim this as a great shearwater had we not seen them from the ferry a few days later on 12th October, yet it's obvious to me that it most probably is one.

Meanwhile the other two birds in the group appear to have dark caps and at least some white in the tail. Even the primaries look darker than the rest of the wing. These are not sooty shearwaters and dark caps and white in the tail only point in one direction and it certainly isn't Manx.

Ultimately I didn't see these birds in the field, I only noticed them from very poor video grabs, so I was never going to tick them and even now it would be ridiculous to claim them as anything more than possible great shearwater. But actually, we all know what they are, especially armed as we are now with the knowledge that there was a large flock of great shearwaters off Barra at the same time.

Eoligarry church, home to many a rarity in the past, most notably American redstart. A little bunting was seen here this morning, but not seen by us.