Rare Bird Alert weekly round-up: 26 September - 02 October 2012

The week's highlights:
Mainland trio of Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler causes midweek consternation
The autumn’s second Swainson’s Thrush drops on to Barra
Mini-invasion of American Buff-bellied Pipits across out-of-the-way islands
Orkney scores with a brief White’s Thrush
Shetland Sykes’s Warbler still showing on Foula
The first-winter Short-billed Dowitcher likes it at Lodmoor
Suffolk’s Spanish Sparrow sneaks back in to view….
Greater Yellowlegs makes a return visit to Aberdeenshire
…while Northeast Scotland also records it first ever Fea’s-type Petrel

So much for wondering if this week may turn out to be a little quieter than the seven days that had just passed by….

It was, to be fair, a little less hectic, but there were still a whole heap of rarities to contend with ~ and Shetland, once again, suggested that nowadays, it really is the place to be if you want to increase your chances of stumbling across something that has popped out of the top drawer….

However! All that said, the main talking point (certainly as the new round-up period began) for most wasn’t generated by another great bird in the Northern Isles (tho’ there were a top-hat full of classy new arrivals there) but by a remarkable trio of the same species that arrived on the east coast mainland…..and all on the very same day.

As the remnants of one of the most potent September storms in over 30 years slipped away, out across the North Sea and off on to the continent, across the top of the low pressure system, almost unnoticed, came a further blast of more easterly and nor’easterly winds (from Yorkshire upwards) and it certainly delivered. As the week progressed, a hefty period of WSW to SW’ly conditions set in and, as with earlier in the autumn, it felt as if the next big rare could appear anywhere between Scilly and Shetland.

Headline birds
In last week’s round-up, there were one or two species mentioned by way of the sheer dominance that Shetland has in terms of accepted records ~ White’s Thrush, Pechora Pipit, Lanceolated Warbler….and at the start of this week, another species that Shetland enjoys the lion’s share of records for made its presence known, in triplicate too, and, amazingly not one was found way up north….

Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler was, for such a long time, one of those fabled eastern vagrants that only world travellers were likely to have encountered, somewhere on the edge of a rice paddy in Thailand or somewhere similar. British records were truly exceptional and, even way in to the 1980’s, it was thought that only a trip to Fair Isle ~ with a fair wind and any number of rabbit’s feet, four leaved clovers and horseshoes packed in to your luggage ~ would give you any hope of scoring this mega Locustella.

Now, thanks mainly to a three day bird in Norfolk in 2001 and more birds being found away from Fair Isle (though still mainly on Shetland) that has changed and this week confirmed, in some style, that these uber-skulkers can be found on the mainland.

The first discovery of a crazy 26th was the Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler in Hartlepool (Cleveland), in the grass near the local Jewish cemetery and was followed, just a couple of hours later, by bird two ~ this one trapped and ringed at Whitburn Coastal Park (Co. Durham) and within the next hour, the hat-trick was complete with the discovery of another in the plantation at Main of Slains, near Whinnyfold (Aberdeenshire).

The bird in Cleveland, a county first, wasn’t seen again after its initial finding, but the birds in Durham (a county, and site, second following one in October 2010) and Aberdeenshire (another county first) did oblige to some degree or another, during the remainder of the day ~ the Whitburn bird went to ground for several hours after release but did show late in the day, while the Whinnyfold bird performed (often in trees!) until dusk.

….confusion then set in on day two in Scotland as, despite initial news to say the bird was still present, some on site viewing images taken by one observer decided that the bird in the pictures was a Grasshopper Warbler. Cue internet debate. TwoLocustellas in 24 hours in one small copse? It would be nice to see the shots tho’ eh….?


As of the end of 2010, there were 48 accepted records of Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler, with a spilt of 46 in Britain and two (including the first, in 1908, dead below the lighthouse on Rockabill) in Ireland.

There was a gap of 41 years between the Dublin corpse to the first in Britain, one arriving on Fair Isle in October 1949. The third for Britain and Ireland followed in October 1956, again on Fair Isle. Then came a 20 year gap until the next accepted record, at Cley, in September 1976, with Fair Isle’s third coming just a few days after the Norfolk bird.

Six birds were recorded in the whole of the 1980’s, all on Shetland and all bar one on Fair Isle (including three in a week in October 1988, around Blackburnian time…) while 14 birds were found during the 1990’s.

Within that dozen plus two came Ireland’s second, on Cape Clear in October 1990 and one of the first multi-observed birds (away from Fair Isle) when twitchers arriving on North Ronaldsay for the Yellow-browed Bunting in 1992 were greeted by a ringing bag with a Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler in it!

Remarkably, one was trapped and ringed at Portland, on the very early date of September 13th 1996 and Fair Isle did the three-in-a-week trick again in October 1998.

A much-appreciated bird on Blakeney Point in September 2001 set the ball rolling for the 2000’s and mainland birds were found at Newbiggin (Northumberland), also in 2001, at Spurn (another early one) on September 14th 2008 and at Whitburn in October 2010.

The four birds mentioned above help to make up the total of just seven mainland records and until September 26th 2012 there had never been a day in which three of these notorious skulkers had been found, not even on Shetland ~ which makes the events of this week all the more remarkable.

But its remains Shetland, and Fair Isle in particular, that dominate the records for the species ~ with 37 of those 48 records found around the islands, 21 of them for Fair Isle (with a one day bird there last year yet to be included in the official stats). Foula has five (included three between October 1st-2nd 2004), Mainland Shetland four, Out Skerries three, Whalsay two, with one each for Fetlar and Unst.

Meanwhile much more of last week's news in the full round-up online including;
American Buff-bellied Pipit influx with stats, maps and video from Scilly
Video of the PGTips in the hand at Whitburn
Fantastic selection of rare passerine photos from Shetland

Plus lots of great photos and more...