Fair Isle 2024. Tennesse Warbler

Jason & I had planned our annual trip to Fair isle way back in the spring  once news came out that the Bird Observatory wouldn't be completed in time for a re-opening this year. The day before we were due to leave I was chilling out at homel not doing much and preparing myself for the all night drive from home to Edinburgh for the 1st flight to Sumburgh and then on to Fair Isle, When my phone pinged with a cryptic message 'hope that sticks until we arrive tomorrow'. This was followed by another message from Steve in the same vein. I knew it must relate to a good bird but it took me awhile to fathom out that a Tennessee Warbler had just been found by Rob Hughes & Nina O'Hanlon on Fair Isle late afternoon.

All three of us have history with this species after missing one by minutes on two consecutive days on Yell a few years ago. See here  for more on that story.......

 There have been several records since but they've all either been very short staying birds or hard to get to. We were on Fair Isle last year when was was seen on Fetlar the day before we were due tpo leave. Typically it had gone the day we got off.  

Picking Jase up at 11 pm I drove up to Edinburgh  and we arrived around 3.30 am and tried, unsuccessfully to get some sleep, before giving up and going for breakfast. Our flight to Sumburgh was on time and we rang Tingwall to confirm our 11 am flight was on schedule before getting a taxi to Tingwall and checking in for the short Airtask flight. By this time there'd still been no new on the Tennessee Warbler and we'd resigned ourselves to the fact it had departed overnight.

It was a glorious day and expectations for the week were high as the weather conditions later in our stay were looking superb for migration and rare birds as the winds were in the south and switching east. Things got even better when we'd literally just landed and a message came through on the local WhatsApp group that Luke, one of the Assistant Wardens, had just seen the Tennessee Warbler in its favoured garden and it was showing well. Brilliant news.

Leaving our luggage to be collected later we set off on foot for the short walk to Upper Stoneybrek where we met Luke and finally laid our binoculars on the bright yellow American vagrant wood-warbler catching  devouring insects it was hunting in the dried seed heads of Angelica.

It was quite mobile and soon moved off to Lower Stoneybrek and then to Stackhoull. Once it got in those gardens it was harder to see and we had to wait until later in the day when it returned back to Upper Stoneybrek to get even better views than we'd had in the morning. 

In the meantime we wandered around looking into various crofts, ditches and drystone walls  (dykes) looking for birds. We struck lucky when I picked up a Pectoral Sandpiper on call as it flew in and landed on Chathams Land. Probably the best views I've ever had of this species and also one of the first rare bird species I ever found when I was a kid living in Suffolk. I had permission to wander around birding at Bury St Edmunds sugar beet factory settling ponds and found one there.

Pec Sand isn't a major rarity but still scarce bird and caused a small twitch consisting of the wardening staff and ex-wardening staff! Then it was back for a 2nd look at the Tennessee.....

By this time a combination of a lack of sleep and lots of miles walked finally got to us and we headed back to our accommodation with Deryk and Holly to sort our gear out and get a well deserved shower.

No sooner had we settled in then Luke rang to say he was on his way to pick us up as they'd caught the Tennessee Warbler in one of the mist nets permanently set by the Obs team in various crofts.

Alex didn't have a copy of Pyle with him, the American equivalent of our European Svenssons ringers guide. Luckily I knew Steve had one so I rang him and he went to his office to photograph the relevant pages and forward them to me enabling Alex to age and sex the bird as a first winter female