Tengmalm’s Owl: My first Shetland twitch almost seems like a rite of passage for any ‘wannabe’ serious lister, it took me on a 1160 mile round trip from Wigan to Tresta to see the long sought after Tengmalm’s Owl.
Believed to be the first Tengmalm’s found on Shetland for over 100 years. Except for the bird found at Spurn back in 1983, that was suppressed, this would be the first Tengmalm’s in recent memory and the first real twitchable bird, one that stuck around for a while and kept to a relatively small area.
It was on Tuesday 19th February news broke that a Tengmalm’s Owl had been found in a garden at Bixter on Shetland and although it took me almost two weeks to pluck up the courage and make a decision to go I think we played a blinder and the gamble paid off.
The Cheshire lads Mark Payne and Malc Curtin were joined by Derbyshire’s Tony Davison and myself, we jumped on the Shetland bound ferry on Friday night arriving in Lerwick at 0730 the following Saturday morning. Upon arriving we were greeted with negative news!
To say that the wait for the hire car and the car ride from the ferry terminal to Tresta was tense is an understatement. Malc drove like he was in some sort of cross country rally race! We arrived at a very crowded parking area opposite Lea Gardens, where the bird had been spending most of its time. Just as we arrived on site the bird had been relocated, we were relieved and over the moon.
Unfortunately the bird was seriously obscured by dense vegetation and the best views to be had were particularly narrow. The owners of Lea Gardens were keen for the birders not to step outside of the pathway boundaries in fear that their well-managed and beloved garden would be trampled.
Subsequently there was a scrum around the small area of best viewing and the path could realistically only hold a very small number of people. I genuinely believe that any damage to plants by any birders was accidental, and not out of a lack of respect for the owners garden or other birders yet to see the bird who might be travelling up on another day.
Eventually the owners became distressed about the damage to their garden and I witnessed Josh Jones doing his up most best to manage the situation. He was very diplomatic in calming the situation and bringing the owners back onside. While I was there I witnessed the owners dogs do more damage to the garden as it ran free within the garden trampling newly emerged spring bulbs.
I was particularly surprised and taken aback to see the owners stepping right in front of the birders on to their own managed flower beds directly beneath the roosting bird. To then grab their point and shoot camera from their pocket and take a couple of pictures of the bird and flash their camera light right at it, not once, not twice but three times! We all held our breath as the bird shuffled around and looked like it was about to take off and be flushed.
Since it was particularly busy in the morning and the bird was obscured we decided to go hunt down the pied-billed grebe and rose finch. We struck lucky with the grebe as it showed well, if distantly from the road overlooking Loch of Spiggie.
We dipped on the rose finch but had a blast at the Fish Quay with a juvenile Iceland gull, several rafts of long-tailed duck, black guillemot and some stunning juvenile kittiwakes.
In the afternoon we returned to Lea Gardens to see if the bird was showing much better, and we struck gold!! The bird came right into the open giving us unobstructed, crippling views that were mind blowing.
Kittiwake: The owners dog then began to play directly beneath the bird and made it wake up and become more mobile and active. This was great an experience that I will never forget. Having our fill of the bird and losing the light we headed back on to the ferry for some celebratory drinks.
Iceland gull: My first Shetland trip paid off, big time. Not all will of course, but this twitch won’t be forgotten any time soon. Top bird, top company with some top birders.
Despite the return journey on the ferry and the hour I spent hurling my guts up in the toilets and feeling like I was going to die!
Black Guillemot: It was a top twitch.
We dipped on the rose finch but had a blast at the Fish Quay with a juvenile Iceland gull, several rafts of long-tailed duck, black guillemot and some stunning juvenile kittiwakes.
