Back to Barra

I've travelled through the Sound of Mull on multiple occasions and each time I eagerly dart around the deck of the ferry scanning the skies hoping to see a white-tailed eagle or two, but I've never seen one yet from the ferry. Until today..... 

For some reason today we made up for all of the previous misses by seeing FIVE eagles, two sitting on rocks just north of Craignuire, two on an island off Salen and one flying over cliffs just north of Tobermorry! They kick started a decent ferry crossing from Oban to Barra.  Bird numbers were generally low and were dominated by kittiwakes and gannets, but we did see grey phalarope (Ray only), storm petrel (me only), sooty shearwater, great northern diver and a few Manx shearwaters.

Sharp-tailed sandpiper, Blacktoft

Photo © Matthew Scarborough

I've seen thousands of sharp-tailed sandpipers in Australia, mainly at Werribee treatment works near Melbourne, Victoria. Yesterday a moulting adult was found by Alan Davies at Blackoft RSPB in Yorkshire, and since I was over that way today I decided to call in for a look. I arrived at 06:45 and made my way to the Singleton hide. I've since read Alan's write up on his blog regarding the discovery of the bird and my experience was actually very similar. 

On reaching the packed hide I found a nice selection of waders on show, including at least six curlew sandpipers, 20 spotted redshank, 50 dunlin and a few ruff. Then suddenly there it was. A smaller bird loosely hanging around with the ruff, yet not entirely comfortable with them, often keeping a good distance away and feeding alone. It also seemed quite active and jumpy and didn't stay still for long, and at one point flew onto a muddy island by itself. It was surprisingly ruff like yet lacked that species unique jizz and scaley upperparts, in fact the upperparts were more dunlin like with pale scapular lines. It still had a few arrow like markings on its flanks and a few streaks on its undertail coverts, but along with the reddish cap, these markings weren't so obvious in the poor light.

It was a good job that I did get there early because pretty soon after I arrived the bird disappeared and was not seen again all day. Sharp-tailed sandpiper joins an ever growing list of great waders that I have seen at Blacktoft, which includes Hudsonian godwit, red-necked stint and white-tailed plover! 

The light wasn't great, the hide was packed and the bird wouldn't stay still, so I struggled getting any photos, but fortunately Matthew Scarborough allowed me to use his photo here. 

A long awaited addition to my UK list which now stands at 441.

The return of ST170.852

Amongst the colour ringed birds on the car park at Pennington Flash today, there was a black-headed gull wearing a metal ring on it's left leg ST170852. This bird was ringed as a nestling at Sipoo, Finland 60°14′N 25°22′E on 23/06/2020 which is approximately 1130 miles from the Flash. I first saw it at the flash on 03/11/2022 but despite looking through the gulls almost daily ever since, this is only my second sighting. There are at least two other metal ringed birds on the car park, but both of these have rings on their right legs. One is the long staying bird from Holland, the other I haven't managed to read it's ring yet.

Juvenile arctic tern and a late hobby, Pennington Flash

Another good early morning at the flash in poor weather. First off there was a juvenile arctic tern sitting on a rock at the far end of the spit. These are always a delight to see, being so much daintier and prettier than juvenile common terns. The bird stayed there for about 20 minutes before being disturbed by a clumsy passing cormorant, at which point it flew up high and headed south.

Then I turned my scope on  the boat club. I didn't have time to head over there today but I wanted to check if the common sandpiper was still about and extending it's record late date at the flash. Sure enough I could see it bobbing around in amongst the coots and mute swans. It's now been present for five days. 

Suddenly I saw a gull having a go at a falcon which turned out to be a hobby, amazingly my first at the flash this year, though they have been reported with some regularity by others. I mustn't have be paying attention. It was heading east and just shot through, over my head and gone, no doubt my last hobby of the year.

Caspian gull and Sandwich terns on a hectic morning at the Flash

An exhilarating morning at the flash, I could barely keep up with what was happening! I arrived at the boat club at 7:30ish and almost immediately saw a gull on the water close in which I immediately thought was a Caspian gull. However, in my mind I called it a juvenile, yet it clearly wasn't. No sooner had I seen it than it flew off towards the flock in the middle and was out of sight for me. Just as it flew, Ian messaged me to say that he'd just had two Sandwich terns but they'd departed high west. Then 20 seconds later another message to say that they were back and high over the spit. By this time I'd already seen them myself and I watched as they climbed higher and this time really did leave west. 

Now another message, female common scoter in the middle. I started to scan and soon found it but barely had time to look at it properly before my phone went again, 2nd winter Caspian gull in the middle! But hang on, 2nd winter? I still had juvenile in my mind, although by this time I had changed my thinking to more like 1st winter. It seemed like my bird probably wasn't a Caspian but by coincidence Ian had found another.

The flock of 40 or so gulls was distant from the boat club and against the light, but fortunately my car was in Green Lane so I swiftly walked back and drove to the main car park. Now I should have no difficulty finding the gull. Wrong! It took me ages to get onto it, I just couldn't see a 2nd winter Caspian gull. There was a gull in the flock which looked a bit like a 1st winter but it's bill was wrong, it was pink and black when it should have been black. I dismissed it and carried on looking for a classic 2nd winter.

However, with directions from Ian who was at the Point of the ruck, it became obvious that the bird I was looking at was indeed the Caspian gull. After a while it flew up onto a buoy and we had quite nice views, including on a couple of occasions the diagnostic albatross posture where they hold their wings back while they call.

We're still not sure about the aging of the bird, it seems to be either a 1st winter with advanced bill or a 2nd winter with retarded plumage. Ain't gulls great!? 😆

Common scoter, Pennington Flash

A day of fuzzy photos! Two drake common scoter were on the flash first thing and a common sandpiper was at the boat club for its second day. This is my latest ever common sandpiper at the flash. The Egyptian goose is also still around, 200+ lapwing are on the spit and around 130 tufted ducks mainly at the eastern end.

Pink-feet are back!

A day of passage at the flash, when around 800 pink-feet were seen heading generally east in the first couple of hours after dawn. Also today around 50 meadow pipits heading south over the ruck and a great white egret flew west at 10:30, and was later seen at Lightshaw Flash (though not by me).

The return of the Egyptian goose

An Egyptian goose was on on the end of the spit this morning, before swimming past Horrock's towards the car park. For at least the past five years a pair of Egyptian geese have spent a month or two at the flash over the summer and in 2021 they had a juvenile with them. However this is the first record that I have from the flash this year, just as I was beginning to think that it was going to be a blank year.

Obviously I've now way of knowing if this is one of the regular birds, but if it is, it's the first time I've seen it in September. Previously the latest date I have for the species is 31st August.

Unringed, for what it's worth. 

Snipe, Pennington Flash

Yesterday evening there was a flock of 17 common snipe on the spit at 18:45. I watched them for about 10 minutes, before 14 of them flew up very high and apparently departed to the west. It's impossible to know if these were British birds moving to the coast or freshly arrived birds from Europe heading south west for the winter, but either way a great sighting. There were still four present this morning.

One of the highlights to our trip to Barra last October was watching flocks of snipe arriving over sea from their breeding grounds in Iceland.

The Scillonian and Bishop Rock Lighthouse

I've been birding 50 years and never been to the Isles of Scilly. I was finally lured there today not just by a red-footed booby which has been hanging around Bishop Rock lighthouse, but also the possibility of several other seabirds which I have never seen before in the UK. It was going to be a fleeting visit though, leave Penzance on the Scillonian at 9:15, arrive St. Mary's at 12 noon, leave St Mary's at 12:15 on a charter boat, arrive Bishop Rock lighthouse 13:00, make sure that we're back on St Mary's in order to catch the Scillonian back to Penzance at 16:15, arriving back on the mainland at 19:00. A day like that was always going to be about the seabirds.

The first part of the journey went well, shortly after we got out of Penzance harbour we started seeing shearwaters and pretty soon there were obviously large numbers in the distance. Most of them looked big and sure enough it didn't take long for us to positively identify our first Cory's.

Great shearwaters were a little more difficult, they rarely seemed to come very close to the boat and when they did they always seemed to go around the front of the boat and were not seen for long, unlike the Cory's which often glided alongside us.

Buff-breasted sandpiper, Marazion

We set off from home at 12 noon, heading for Penzance. It was a pretty straightforward journey and at 19:00 we arrived at Marazion and went straight to the beach. There's been a buff-breasted sandpiper here for a few days, feeding on the tideline with ringed plover, sanderling, dunlin, turnstone, knot and a single ruff. Fortunately when we arrived the tide was in and had forced the birds to within about 5m of the sea wall and it didn't take long to locate the buff-breasted sandpiper.

A really smart bird.