Holy Island and Another Tilt at the Sardinian Warbler

Was on Holy Island for 06:30 am this morning. The causeway closed at 07:10 and so I had the island more or less to myself for about 4 hours. Despite this it was disappointingly pretty dead. 3 or 4 lingering Yellow Browed, 1 Wheatear & a single Pale Bellied Brent Goose was about it.

By 11am the causeway was open again and the bloody tourists arrived en mass. Time for a sharp exit.

Lindisfarne Castle on a murky Friday morning

News was positive on the Sardinian Warbler at St Abbs and since I was passing, I decided to give it another go. The sun was out and it was singing and contact calling almost constantly but despite this is was still being an elusive wee blighter. I did however manage to at least see it fairly well albeit briefly this time. However, despite chasing it around with the camera for about an hour I completely failed to get even the hint of a record shot.

Right Place at the Right Time

With a big dumping of Yellow Browed  Warblers on the east coast and conditions continuing to look good I decided to head for St Abbs on Wednesday morning to find one for myself. After dropping Rachel at school I arrived at St Abbs at 10:45 and in the rain was soon hearing my first Redwings of the Autumn.

I searched around the boathouse and thought I heard a Yellow Browed but with not having heard any for nearly a year one always doubts one self. As I headed north towards the reedbed end I continued to hear them and it was obvious that there were several. Indeed during the day I must have seen at least 6. Goodness knows how many there were probably double figures.

I met a birder who casually told me that there was a Sardinian Warbler calling and singing further along the track. He hadn't seen it but it was calling regularly and he had been told that it was bearing a ring. Could this be the same bird that was trapped ringed and released at the same site and not seen again back in June?

I was quickly hearing a bird that I was familiar with from Greece, Turkey & Spain. Same sound that I had been hearing in Crete 2 months ago. Hearing was one thing, seeing was another and in the next 3 hours I followed it around seeing it briefly once maybe twice in flight. By 3pm it had stopped calling altogether and there was no further sign by the time I left. Travelling home I began to doubt myself. Could I have been listening to a Lesser Whitethroat ? A quick check on the songs and calls when I got home proved to me beyond doubt that I had been listening to contact calls of a Sardinian Warbler.

Catching Up with the Blue Winged Teal

A quick trip up to Frankfield Loch on Saturday morning for the BWT I had missed last Sunday. 2 birders were already on it, so all the hard work was done for me!

Unfortunately, it was asleep all of the time and this was the best digiscoped image I could come up with:

You can just about see the crescent on the face

The Pec Sand had departed, but there were still 2-3 Dunlin and a Ruff :

Ruff

Barred Warbler secured but no Yank Ducks

With the winds in the east I thought it would be worth doing a day out in East Lothian. First stop was the Musselburgh wader scrapes which were quiet apart from a single Black Tailed Godwit.

Quickly onwards to Barns Ness where it was quickly obvious that there had been a fall with several Whitethroat and a Garden Warbler seen in quick succession. After a bit of searching I had a reasonable view of a Barred Warbler.

There's a Barred in there somewhere

Barns Ness

I spent about 50 mins doing a seawatch but there was nothing other than Gannets & Fulmars going past.

Despite searching I could not locate the eclipse drake Ring Necked Duck in Dunbar quarry.

Came home via the Pec Sand at Frankfield Loch where there was also 3 Dunlin, 2 Ringed Plover, Snipe and 1 Ruff. Could not locate the eclipse drake Blue Winged Teal.

Autumn

You know that the summer is coming to an end when its time to visit Baron's Haugh for waders. It didn't disappoint today with 2 Green Sandpipers, 1 Ruff & 5 Black Tailed Godwit.

Green Sandpiper

Crete

Spent 2 weeks with the family based in Georgioupolis on the western side of Crete. Lovely place, crap hotel.

Very little birding was done, too hot ! 4 Griffon Vultures at the Samaria Gorge was by far the best. Saw a few Red Rumped Swallows, a probable Crested Lark, some probable Black Eared Wheatear and very litte else.

A Double Lifer Weekend

St Fergus by 6am on Saturday morning provided my first lifer of the weekend in the shape of a very obliging Rock Thrush:

Juvenile Male Rock Thrush

Just round the corner was a female Red Backed Shrike:

RB Shrike

Just up the road at Rattray there were c6 Corn Buntings:

Corn Bunting

An Arctic Skua flew past offshore.

Headed back south to Blackdog and got lucky & picked out a Drake Surf Scoter almost straight away in a flock of thousands of loafing Scoter.

Sunday involved a return to Northumberland for a second go at the Bridled Tern that has been leading many a merry dance over the last few weeks. When I boarded the boat at 12:30 there had been no sign for almost 24 hours and I wasn't particularly hopeful. The journey to Inner Farne seemed to take an age as it did a tour of all the other islands first. I tried to busy myself trying to photograph some of the sea birds but my heart wasn't really in it. These are the best of a bad lot:

A couple of Manx Shearwaters from the boat was another year tick..

When the boat eventually got to Inner Farne, there were already about 25 twitchers on the jetty scanning the rocks that the Tern had been favouring.  Some of the faces were familiar from my own failed attempt 2 weeks ago. Amazingly, and no more than 15 minutes after arriving, a shout went up and the Bridled was back. There was that awful period trying to get on to the bird. However, all was well as it settled down in with the flock of other loafing Terns:

It all made the journey worthwhile. Role on the next one !