Saturday 14 May 2016

GREEN WARBLER: Baltasound, Unst 14/05/16

I was out doing a Breeding Bird Survey on Mainland Shetland when a text came through of a probable GREEN WARBLER at Baltasound, Unst which had been initially Id'd as a Greenish the day before.
I phoned up Dave and he was going so I said I'd join him and we shot up for the 1355 ferry to Yell.
At Toft terminal we rendezvoused with Georgie Petrie and Pete before catching the ferry up and speaking with Andy Cook from Fetlar who was also heading up.
Ferry came in and we headed straight up before catching the next ferry to Unst and then heading straight to 'SHE' in Baltasound for the Warbler.
Several cars of birders left when we arrived but many were still around, bird has been sighted 10 minutes before we'd arrived and had dived into cover again, usually showed well every 15-20 minutes, so now the waiting came set in

We waited an hour and many people had left so it was just our group, one or two of us had spread out to check other sites and then George found the bird a couple of hundred metres away! we legged it but it would not be refound again.
10 minutes later, Pete and I headed back to the site where George had found it and we picked it up again before it shot off towards the main plantation on the east side of SHE!

We spent the next 10 minutes checking the bushes and gardens in SHE but with no luck so Pete and I went back to check the main plantation.
I went up the east side and within a minute I was greeted by a bird feeding in the trees, I quickly raised the bins and bam!! the Green Warbler!!!! I shouted out to everyone else and you could here them running towards me.

Green Warbler if accepted 2nd for UK, first for Scotland/Shetland

The bird happily fed for 20 minutes and I managed some record shots, even better was that everyone present got to see the bird and with that we headed for the 1715 ferry, eating celebratory lemon tarts from Andy Cook on the way down, we were definitely some happy birders.

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