EASTERN CROWNED WARBLER at Turriefield, Sandness, Shetland. After work twitch! First for Shetland, First for Scotland and my second one after seeing the first for Britain in the quarry at South Shields in 2009. This is the 5th record for Britain and 14th for the Western Palearctic. Very difficult to photograph, got lucky late in the day!
I had some time in lieu owed and this morning asked my seniors if I could take this, so I could get on with my decorating, which needed to be finished by the end of today. Plus I am now on annual leave for the next two weeks. But, when news broke at 14.35 of an Eastern Crowned Warbler, just before I left off work at 3pm, plans quickly changed!
With under a quarter tank of petrol (note to self, always keep a minimum of half a tank in September and October) I headed towards Sandness. Parked up and walked across to join a fairly large crowd – more people than my pictures show – someone else thought that there was maybe around 300 birders here. This is my second Eastern Crowned Warbler and it was extremely exciting to know I was going to see another and in Shetland too! It was insanely difficult to photograph, but good views were had every now and again. It was constantly on the move and feeding in the willows and more than often was obscurred by branches, as my two pictures below portray. Sometimes it would sit still for a while, but was rarely on view when it did this. Huge thanks to the owners who kindly allowed us all to be there, much appreciated.
Lovely to bump into so many lovely birders, including Norfolk birders Graham E. and Marcus N., plus all the visting and local birders here and nice to see Paul B. back. Later on, after most of the crowd had left, the ECW was relocated in the garden in a different spot, so I walked back to the road and along the drive to join others watching this bird at a much closer viewing distance. A Yellow-browed Warbler was also showing and fooling people into thinking it was the ECW when people were trying to relocate it. Anyway, when the light was starting to fade, it appeared in a tree and I quickly realised that if I moved two yards left of where I was standing, I would get a clear view for that one photograph I was looking for. I have a few, none are pin sharp and this was the only one worth posting, as the others are almost identical poses.
When I left, local birder Jim N. asked if he could have a lift back to his car. Took Jim back to his car, did a 3-point turn in the road and drove to Lerwick to top up with fuel before returning home. As I started to fill my car up, Jim turned up and said "did you not see me flashing you?" Long and short of it, Jim had left his camera gear on my back seat!!! 😆 So funny! I nearly gained a spare set of gear!😂 Went to buy a fish supper, no time for cooking, went home. Fell asleep. Wrote the blog and then had to decorate until some insane hour into Friday morning. Excellent start to my next annual leave for birding!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment