Pine Bunting!

After the autumn's record influx, it seemed inevitable that the odd Pine Bunting would be unearthed in the British countryside this winter. By the end of 2016 that inevitability had not yet materialised, but it was on New Year's Day that a female was found at Venus Pool, Shropshire. Unfortunately it proved extremely elusive and was seen well only the following day; it was reported on subsequent dates but always briefly and many left the site having dipped.

Pine Bunting, along with Aquatic Warbler, has sat at the top of my 'most wanted' list of birds to see in Britain for years now. I dipped the Choseley bird twice back in the day and, unable to get a lift to Worcestershire in 2005, it's been a long wait for another. I've always found it an interesting species - females are subtle (thus providing a genuine identification challenge), there's always the hybrid issue to consider and overcome, and males in particular are really dapper birds. It's also one of those species that you feel anyone has a fighting chance of finding given their penchant for turning up at otherwise uninspiring inland sites. The problem these days, as much as any other, appears to be finding flocks of their fast-declining western counterpart, Yellowhammer, to search through. It's quite depressing how depleted this species is in the British countryside even compared to when I started actively birding in the early to mid-2000s, when its populations were already severely reduced from historical levels.

New Pine Buntings have been popping up all over Western Europe on what seems like a daily basis this January, and another in Britain never seemed far away. Step forward Chris Gomersall, who did a fine job by pulling out a stunning male from among a big Yellowhammer flock at Dunnington, just east of York, on Friday.  The bird showed a few times over the Saturday and so I decided to head for the site early on Sunday in order to try my luck. The main problem was that I didn't have my telescope, and this was most definitely a 'scope job. On arrival a big crowd of birders were looking in to a rough field at several hundred metres' range - not something my 8x bins were ever going to deal with!

After a nice catch-up with Andy and Vicky I decided to make use of myself and head off to explore the surrounding fields, in the hope that I might stumble across birds that were remotely close enough to check with binoculars. The sheep field where the bird had been seen on Saturday seemed a good place to start. Quite amazingly, no one else was looking and so I carefully walked the field edge, sifting through the various species feeding in the field or sitting in the hedgerows - there were plenty of Yellowhammers, a few Reed Buntings, various finches and lots of winter thrushes.

The whole place seemed very 'birdy' and undisturbed, so I decided to sit down by the fence. This caused the sheep to spook and consequently flushed everything up in to the trees, but soon enough birds started dropping back down. I sat there for about 10 minutes before, suddenly, an unmistakable brown-and-white head pattern appeared among a small group of Yellowhammers at 50 metres' range. No doubt that it was the male Pine Bunting, and in fantastic light too! The bird was extremely wary and mobile - even the excited reach for my camera caused the flock to pop back up in to the trees - but soon it came back down. I made a few calls to friends in the main crowd and awaited their arrival.

Uncropped (top) to ultra-cropped versions of the same shot ... the Dunnington Pine Bunting

I had a few brief views over a five-minute period, with the bird landing no more than 20 metres away at one point. Unfortunately it sat still, facing away, for about five seconds before bolting off again. If only it'd fed there for a little longer and turned to profile..!

The number arriving birders was never going to help - the increased movement and commotion clearly wasn't to the feeding flock's taste and they quickly moved away down the hedgerow, back west towards the original field. I always find bunting flocks can be very nervy and thus the utmost care needs to be applied when trying to watch them, even when on your own. The birds were very edgy with just me there, so it's no real surprise that they moved off when more started to arrive. A shame, but I think the bird was seen on back over in the other field on a couple of occasions shortly afterwards. Clearly this is a challenging bird to see but the corner of the field at 53.9679, -0.9678 seems to be a good area for feeding birds, and is well worth focusing on if visiting in the coming days. The Yellowhammers (and Pine Bunting) spent most of their time feeding around the fallen tree about 30m along the hedgerow running WSW back towards the farmhouse.

Given the autumn's arrival and the numbers just over the Channel in e.g. the Netherlands, there must be so many out there waiting to be found in unsuspecting patches of the British countryside. Hopefully a few more individuals of this brilliant species might be found before spring.

North Uist and back

If you were to ask most birders what the likelihood of them seeing a live Black-billed Cuckoo in the British Isles was, it's highly likely that the vast majority would have rated the probability somewhere between "microscopic" and "nil" before last Sunday.

Black-billed Cuckoo, a bird that has only appeared once in Britain in a quarter of a century, has a reputation for arriving on this side of the Atlantic in poor health (many have been dead or dying) and rarely lingers for more than a day, is notorious for being among the most difficult species to catch up with on our shores. Even in the heydays of the 80s there are countless tales of birders arriving a day too late to see one, or even stuck on the wrong island while down on Scilly. This, combined with their apparent decline in the States and the clear downturn in occurrences on this side of the Atlantic, created a dire scenario - it seemed any occurrence of the species had become almost impossible to come by, let alone a remotely twitchable individual. Then came the faint glimmer of hope: records from Brittany, France, in November 2013 and North Ronaldsay in October 2014 hinted that, one day, British birders might be afforded another opportunity to see what ranks as one of the most enigmatic of all Nearctic landbird vagrants recorded in Europe.

I spent last week in Finland. It was a fantastic six-day trip - beautiful scenery, brilliant wildlife and great weather. The only blemish on a perfect - if largely sleepless - week was that little more than an hour after our arrival in Helsinki on Sunday 22nd, Chris Batty had phoned Dan to tell us that a Black-billed Cuckoo had been found on North Uist. Initially we tried to dismiss the report - a Coccyzus in May?! It surely had to be rubbish! It wasn't. Dan was beside himself; even the failed twitcher, yours truly, couldn't help but feel gripped.

The week slipped by and, day by day, we were informed of the cuckoo's continued presence. It showed no signs of poor health, like so many of its predecessors, and by Wednesday the first waves of cautious optimism were beginning to flow through our veins. By the time we flew back on Friday, a plan was in place - we'd land at Heathrow, head back to mine in West London and hit the road north with the aim of getting on the Saturday afternoon sailing of the Uig-Lochmaddy ferry.

The drive was one of the worst I've done for a long time. A chronic lack of sleep in Finland made it a battle. By the time we reached Glasdrum Woods, north of Oban, we'd been travelling constantly for the best part of 18 hours without rest. But with these sort of things, you just have to grit your teeth and keep going - the last remotely twitchable Black-billed was in October 1990. I was nine months old, Dan two months and both James and Liam, who made up the rest of the team, were still some way off being born.

It was a beautiful morning in Argyll and it was no surprise to see that Glasdrum's Chequered Skippers were out enjoying the already-warm sunshine at 7 am. At least 15 were seen, some of which hadn't yet warmed up enough and were affording decent photo opportunities. Also there were plenty of Small Pearl-bordered and a single Pearl-bordered Fritillary.

Chequered Skippers, Glasdrum Woods, Argyll, 28 May 2016

Shortly after leaving Glasdrum our nerves were transformed to exaltation as Dan received a text message from Adam Archer saying something along the lines of "f**king get in!" Evidently the cuckoo was still around, now all we had to do was get there ...

Skye proved packed with eagles: we had an adult Golden south of Portree, 3cy White-tailed just north-west of there and then three Golden and two White-tailed around Uig. The ferry crossing produced a couple of Arctic Skuas, a Bonxie and a breeding-plumaged Great Northern Diver plus some extremely distant Bottlenose Dolphins.

Dan barged his way to the front of the hire car queue and we were soon on our way west from Lochmaddy. Fifteen minutes later and the search was on. More and more people arrived and fanned out. It was a particularly warm afternoon - far too toasty for the jeans, coat and boots I was in. For some time it was just the usual displaying waders and a singing Common Cuckoo that kept us entertained.

An hour or so in to the search and suddenly, some distance from where we were stood, there were the tell-tale signs that something exciting was happening: birders waving, starting to run. We jumped straight in the car and bombed down to gardens near Loch Sandary. The crowd grew near, the car was ditched. Seconds later there it was, poking its fantastic head out of a Christmas tree. The bird we all hoped - but dared not believe - we might one day see.

Black-billed Cuckoo, Paible, North Uist, 28 May 2016

It proved quite mobile for the next hour but afforded great views for much of that time. It was, however, pretty unobtrusive for long periods as it sat motionless in bushes. It could easily go missing without large numbers of observers looking and it's no wonder that there'd been no sign for much of the previous day.

After having had our fill of the cuckoo, we mooched off for a drive around North Uist and Benbecula. It was a glorious evening and waders were displaying all around: Dunlin, Common Snipe, Redshank ... and eventually our target, Red-necked Phalarope; a cracking pair.

Rather than head back for the cuckoo (which apparently showed beautifully at around 8 pm) we decided to return to Lochmaddy. We wanted to watch the Champions League final and so went to the Lochmaddy Hotel, but were given the cold shoulder ("we're too busy", said the waitress). This was a fortunate turn of events as we ended up eating at the nearby Hamersay House, where the food was excellent and the place generally far superior.

Sunday was spent sleeping and mooching around the cuckoo site (we didn't see it) before checking a few gardens on the south side of the island. Nothing interesting, but another pleasant day and a calm return crossing on the ferry. The journey back south from Uig proved tedious due to an hour-long tailback near Loch Lomond; it wasn't until after midnight that we reached Dan's in Staffordshire. Not that it mattered much after such a successful 48 hours - Outer Hebrides twitches are always among the most enjoyable, not least because of the wonderful scenery on offer both en route and on arrival. Here's to the next one!