On this day...

France has had an Ovenbird and a Blackburnian Warbler. There are Yellow-billed Cuckoos and Red-eyed Vireos in the South West. Shetland has rare Shrikes by the dozen. Meanwhile I am in Canary Wharf, racing against other rats as usual. I had been planning to go to Shetland this year as I have not been since 2016, but the trip never really got off the ground and I ended up using my annual leave for something else. That something else has yet to happen, but I have high hopes. Shetland is unique however, and I wish I could be there. 

But I can't, so why not relive a few past glories? It's the 2nd of October today, the beginning of what I call the silly season. September largely sees the commoner rare birds, Little Buntings, Red-backed Shrikes, Barred Warblers etc, but it is really in October that things begin to hot up and the outrageous birds begin to appear.

The 2nd October was a 2010 was a case in point. It had been an anxious trip up to Shetland, with our flight from London cancelled and a mad dash in a taxi to Birmingham to catch another, which ultimately got us to Sumburgh on the same day, albeit with little time for birding. Somewhere along the way my suitcase disappeared but I had my binoculars so all was well. In the three or so hours before the daylight ended I'd seen a Syke's Warbler and a Swainson's Thrush, which had arrived on the island from entirely different directions. They breed, at a minimum, close to five thousand miles apart, yet on Shetland one was at Channerwick and the other at Levenwick, roughly one and a half miles apart. 

Amazing to think that this was nine years ago, how time flies. Three years ago, also on the 2nd of October and also on Shetland, I saw a Lanceolated Warbler creeping through some long grass, but it is the first afternoon of my maiden trip in 2010 that sticks in the mind, the start of a crazy week up there where I got six 'lifers'. Subsequent visits, six in total, have never managed to live up that first trip, but I'm feeling the urge to get up there again. Quite when I am not sure, but my tentative plan is to spend a month up there when I next get made redundant. I am a glass half full kind of guy.

As I have no UK autumn birding planned this year, this is advance warning that this type of post could feature again. Scanning down my list early to mid-October is rich in the kind of birds that bring out the urge to reminisce all too easily. I could just tweet them to far greater reaction, but where is the fun in that? Also I need to write a further 62 blog posts this year in order to equal last year's already meagre total. Quantity not quality...

Last Sleep

Not sure if I'll manage any sleep, very excited. Maybe the tactic is to stay awake all night so that I sleep on the way up there and don't have to listen to the boys' inane chatter. How many ticks are we going to get? What's your most hoped-for bird? What are we going to find? Bo-oring! Who am I kidding?!! This is essential birder conversation, to be savoured, repeated, quoted, repeated again.

So what are my most hoped-for birds? I confess I'd not given it much thought until a few moments ago. Clearly something exceedingly rare, and given the mix of east and westerly winds, it could come from either side, so I am going to pick one of each. From the east, I would like to see an Olive-backed Pipit. Perhaps not so rare, but a real looker. Pechora's pretty nice too, but if I had to choose outrageous, it would of course be a Siberian Rubythroat, but only a nice bright adult. And from the west, any Dendroica, especially Canada, but I think overall a Veery would be the one for me. For starters, I'd probably recognise it.

So, an early start tomorrow, most of the day in transit, but a opportunity, should the weather allow, to twitch something immediately, so to everyone who is already on there, please find a biggy. The first time I ever went, I had two new birds by the end of the first afternoon, both megas. The same again would be the perfect start. I'll try and post regular updates, both gripping and depressing, but I'm not taking a laptop so no chance to go through the photos up there. Any particularly gripping birds and I'll take them straight off the screen. Laters.

Little Bittern at Stockers Lake was just a Mistle Thrush after all!

I returned to Herts today for another crack at the Mistle Thrush, as I had only seen it briefly in flight during the week and had unaccountably failed to rule out female Little Bittern. A number of people had suggested I may have been stringing it, so I endured a nervous couple of days of negative news, followed this morning by it being refound in almost exactly the same spot. Hah, I knew it was still there!

In company of Bradders, Hawky, and Muffin - a Mistle Thrush dipper earlier in the week - we glided around the M25 and arrived just after it had disappeared deep into some reeds, no doubt searching for some tasty worms. We didn't have too long to wait thankfully, as it was soon picked up in a willow close to the water. Although the whole bird was difficult to see, being mostly obscured by branches, glimpses of a black cap, stripy breast and large yellow bill pointed all too clearly to Mistle Thrush. Phew!

Frustrating views were had by all over the next half an hour as it skulked right at the bottom of the willow, occasionally darting forward to pull a wiggling worm out of the water. And then for no apparent reason it hopped up higher into the willow before flying out and down into some more favourable thrush habitat of reeds and sedge. We charted it's progress with snatches of movement, a bill here, an eye here, and then finally the moment we had all been waiting for! It crept out of the reeds into full view and showed brilliantly, allowing those present to see all the critical features and eliminate once and for all any thoughts of it merely being a Little Bittern.

The Mistle Thrush poses with a particularly rotund worm

They're an oft confused species it has to be said, and getting good views is essential before you tick any vagrant Mistle Thrush - many is the time I have been fooled by Little Bitterns on the Golf Course in Wanstead, or hopping around the football pitches, especially in mid-summer when they feed in family groups. I've very nearly put the news out on the pager several times, before realising that it was just another party of Little Bitterns and not the rare Thrushes I had initially thought them to be. Still, with experience you gradually get to work out what is what, and I see so many Little Bitterns every year on the patch that I'd always back myself to spot an out-of-context Mistle Thrush, especially if in its favoured habitat of reeds.