Hoopoe, Ince Blundell

Hoopoe long ago lost it's status as my bogey bird in the UK, yet for the first 25 years of my birding career it was just that, I just couldn't see one anywhere without getting on a plane and flying to Europe. How things have changed, todays bird at Ince Blundell was my 10th in North West England and my 5th in Merseyside, which included a self found bird on Hilbre last year. Even so, I've still never seen one on the south or east coast of the UK from Cornwall to Shetland (I've never been to Scillies). 

It gave me the run around today, it took me 3 attempts to see it. First time it had flown across the Formby bypass and was lost to view 5 minutes before I arrived and second time it had just been flushed by a vehicle and flown half a mile away in the opposite direction and lost to view behind a pine woodland. Finally at the third attempt I saw it, but even then after 5 minutes it was flushed by a kestrel and flew back towards the pine woodland.

Bittern, Lunt Meadows

I called in at Lunt Meadows today hoping to see a 1st winter male ring-necked duck which would have been a Merseyside tick for me but no sign of it today. However, while I was waiting at Pump House Pool a Bittern suddenly appeared in the reeds which it turns out was even better, being a year tick as well as a Merseyside tick, bringing my Merseyside list to 279.

Lesser yellowlegs, a Merseyside tick

Marshside, Southport early morning before work, the North American lesser yellowlegs was showing exceptionally well in great light and with no wind. A great looking bird. Although I've seen about four previously in south west Lancs, and at least two in Cheshire including one as close as Houghton Green Flash, this is the first that I have seen in Merseyside and brings my Merseyside list to 278.

Redwings and Fieldfares flood in

There was a mass movement of thrushes today, especially this morning with huge counts recorded across the North West. Most remarkable where the counts at Crosby of 122,600 birds and Horwich moors 62,000+ birds. 

Unfortunately I couldn't get to the flash in the morning so missed out to a large extent, but I did record thousands over our back garden in the morning, all of which must have passed over the flash. There were less birds in the afternoon but I still recorded over 2000 passing over in flocks which varied in size from 20 - 100 birds. Redwings accounted for about 75% of the total, though ironically all of my photos are of fieldfares.

Escape from Barra across the Sea of the Hebrides

Our departure from Barra was delayed by three days due first to a bow thruster failure on the MV Isle of Lewis followed by a failure of some steelwork on the rescue vessel, MV Lord of the Isles. Finally after days of anxiety and uncertainty, not least about where we were to stay for the extra nights, MV Clansman came to our aid and amid emotional scenes at the harbour got us off the island.

Not that the three extra days weren't time well spent, the bulk of the barnacle goose and all of the whooper swan passage happened after our official leave date and was possibly the single greatest experience of the holiday whilst arguably the bird of the holiday turned up in the shape of the Hornemann's Arctic redpoll.

However, finally we departed Barra at 13:30 today and headed off into the murk which shrouded the island with the forecast of 40mph wind and heavy rain ahead of us. It turned out ok though, yes we got wet and buffeted but we still spent most of the five hour journey on deck and saw some decent sea birds and at least 20 common dolphins. Just before we arrived at the entrance to the Sound of Mull we came across a feeding frenzy of mainly gannets and kittiwakes which were harassed by juvenile pomarine and long-tailed skuas and right in the middle of it all emerged a breaching minke whale. A great end to the holiday, I then packed up and went inside to dry off and enjoy a hot meal before we arrived in Oban.

Earlier on the trip we had seen at least nine petrels, one of which was certainly Leach's, but most of the rest appeared to be storm petrels.

Hornemann's Arctic redpoll, Glenn, Barra

Just a couple of hours before we were due to board our ferry home, this little beauty turned up at Glen near Castlebay, a Hornemann's Arctic redpoll. This was my first sighting of this race having previously seen two Coue's Arctic redpolls, and it was a real snowball of a bird, by far my best and most convincing Arctic redpoll.

Hornemann's Arctic redpoll originate from Greenland, so it's appearance is not totally surprising given the mass arrival of geese, swans and redwings from that direction over the past few days. We didn't see it with other redpolls, but after we left the island it was joined by a couple of lesser redpolls which it apparently dwarfed. The wide bill base of the race is particularly noticeable in this photo. This is the third record of Hornemann's Arctic redpoll on Barra and the first since 2009.

Whoopers and barnacle geese in off the sea

Lots of migration in evidence today, with parties of whooper swans joining the waves of barnacle geese heading south east through the Sound of Barra. This really has been one of the highlights of the holiday for me and has more than compensated us for our delayed return home due to mechanical failures on two ferries on Saturday and today.

Most flocks of barnacle geese continued to fly over high and away south east but for some reason this flock along with a couple of others headed low north west through the Sound and one theory is that these may actually be part of the small population which over winters on the islands of the Sound. However, I'm not sure about that, they appeared to fly up to the north tip of the island and then turn south west, perhaps they're just taking a different route.

White-tailed eagles, Eoligarry

I'm starting to lose count of the number or eagles we have seen on this trip so far and today we added another two white-tailed and a single golden eagle to the tally. This was our sixth sighting of white-tailed, involving at least five, possibly seven birds, and by eagle standards the views have been spectacular. 

The photo above reminds me of my very first encounter with the species, in Greece in 1985. We were close to the Bulgarian border at Lake Kerkinis when we saw two huge birds flying much more distant than this. Even though I'd never seen them before the jizz of the species was immediately obvious, particularly the long necked, short tailed look. We watched them land out of view but we had a rough idea of where they were and eventually our track took us right past the spot. They were eating a fish, pestered by two magpies which kept hoping towards them, stealing a mouthful before backing off rapidly. I never dreamt that I would see them so well in the UK.

Meanwhile at Nask we had our fifth sighting of at least our eighth golden eagle. This species has generally been a little more distant, but even so we've had good views, much better than I usually expect of a species which I see far less often than white-tailed and usually in far more difficult terrain.

Golden plover at Barra airport

The flat grassy fields near Barra airport are great for roosting waders at high tide, especially golden plover and lapwings and during our stay we've seen  flocks of up to 200 of the former. I couldn't say if this is the same flock that has been present all the way through our holiday or if they are just moving through. Today there were a couple of juvenile ruffs with them which were the first we have seen on the island.

Scurrival beach and the Sound of Barra

What a place the Sound of Barra is, glorious beaches and incredible views across to Eriskay and South Uist, and the wildlife is outstanding. Today I walked along Scurrival beach and met Ray at Eoligarry jetty. Sanderling scurried across the sand like clock work toys and the air was full of the piping of ringed plover. Twite and rock doves flew up from under my feet close to the dunes. Suddenly I noticed a flock of waders flying towards me fast, snipe in off the sea, they flew away inland. 

Next I heard the barking of geese close by and a flock of around 50 barnacle geese flew over heading east through the Sound, and they were followed by others, four small flocks totalling around 150 birds. These are from the Greenland population and they won't have seen land for at least 600 miles if they stopped over in Iceland and more like 1000 miles if they've come straight from Greenland. An amazing experience to watch them arriving for the winter. A few minutes later 12 pale-bellied brent geese followed the same path. Meanwhile an adult white-tailed eagle flew over Fuidheigh and a partial summer plumage great northern diver flew over the sea. When I eventually reached the jetty, Ray had just been watching an otter catching and then eating a fish. What a place this is.

Harbour seal, Eoligarry jetty

This young harbour seal was hauled out on the jetty at Eoligarry today.

Rock doves at Scurrival beach

It's said that pure rock doves can be hard to find these days due to hybridisation with feral pigeons and the Outer Hebrides is probably about as good as it gets in the UK for seeing genuine rock doves. There are certainly plenty around here, we've seen many flocks of 100 or more all over the place including these birds at Scurrival beach.

Pale-bellied brent geese, Traigh Mhor

Six pale-bellied brent geese, five adults and a juvenile, were on Traigh Mhor this afternoon and were possibly the same birds as those seen at Rubha Ardvule, South Uist this morning.

Scandinavian blackbirds at the football pitch?

It's getting a bit desperate now, we're starting to claim migrant blackbirds! Migration on Barra this week has been non-existent and there's not much prospect of it improving in our final couple of days, so we'll take whatever we can get. 

Having struggled to add blackbird to our trip list at the start of the holiday, they now seem common and it appears that there has been an influx. I'm not sure what to make of them, a large proportion have black plumage with black bills which seems to indicate that they are Scandinavian blackbirds. I don't know how common these are in winter, probably pretty common, but I can't say that I've ever noticed a completely black blackbird with a black bill before. 

I can't find a lot of literature on the subject, but I'm told that they usually have a quite a scaley look and longer wings, so perhaps these don't quite fit the bill, certainly in terms of the scaliness. At the moment I'm just not certain.

Another day on South Uist

We'd always planned to make a couple of trips to South Uist and after nearly two weeks of birding the same locations on Barra we decided that it was time for a change of scenery. Not that South Uist or any where on the Western Isles has been faring much better than Barra when it comes to rarities this autumn, in fact at the time of writing Barra has had the only mega on these isles in the shape of the Swainson's thrush, but a change is as good as a rest as they say. 

We headed first for Boisdale where there had been a juvenile American golden plover present for a couple of days. At first it was impossible, with the sun in completely the wrong position and too bright for us to have any hope picking out a grey looking golden plover, but eventually a combination of the Earth revolving slightly over time, some perfectly positioned cloud and a repositioning of the car allowed us to get some decent views, though not great photos. It's the front right bird in this photo.

acredula willow warbler

Yesterday we had almost a complete washout with strong winds and heavy rain from 11am all the way through to 6am this morning, today we had glorious sunshine. Not much in the way of migration at the moment, the best we could find was a grey looking willow warbler of the northern Scandinavian race acredula. However we were more than compensated by four golden eagles flying together and a single adult white-tailed eagle. Best amongst the supporting cast, 20+ twite showing exceptionally well.

Acredula willow warblers are very grey looking with a strong supercillium.

Before the next storm

With another storm approaching rapidly from the west we only had a very small window of opportunity to get outside today, from sunrise at 7:30 to 10:00. After that the wind strengthened to around 55mph and the rain became very heavy.

However we had a productive two and a half hours in the Eoligarry area, with five species of raptor, including male hen harrier, adult peregrine and a hunting merlin. From the jetty there were a few gannets and four great northern divers flew west through the Sound of Barra.

Yellow-browed warbler, Brevig

Finally this afternoon we caught up with a yellow-browed warbler at Brevig (photo © Bruce Taylor). It was very skulking and didn't call at all but nice to get it under our belts. I always struggle with yellow-browed warblers.

Groundhog day

Another tough day doing the rounds on Barra, no new arrivals so far following yesterdays storm and the rest of the Outer Hebrides are also quiet at the moment. Migration seems almost non-existent, but at least there are the resident birds to keep us entertained.  

Another walk around the north end of the island produced some good views of male hen harrier, adult peregrine and a merlin, but the only new bird was from an unexpected direction, with a calling yellow-browed warbler new at Brevig, which refused to show itself to us. Yellow-browed warbler from the east, new in on the day following severe gales from the west???