Rarity Round-up
September saw too many top rare birds, so there’s not enough room to report them all!
The best rare birds seen in the UK and Ireland during September
Last month (covering August), there were so many rarities of real quality, that we could only summarise the key players in the ‘roundup’; and leave the reader to find their favourite local rare birds in their favourite county report. This month (covering September), the situation is that much worse (or better). So, dear reader, please forgive the birds we leave out.
We must start with a bird already covered last month, but still shockingly new: Brown Booby. The 2nd saw the discovery of a first-summer Brown Booby at Kynance Cove, Cornwall. Clearly different in appearance from the secondsummer which had been at Gwithian, St Ives, Cornwall, in late August, this was an altogether scruffier, more tatty bird, with a blue-grey face. Luckily for those who missed the St Ives bird, this new individual hung around and performed until it was last seen on 7th.
Also drawing a considerable mass of birders was a certain female wheatear at Fluke Hall, Pilling, Lancashire (from the beginning of the month to 17th). It was either a Pied or an Eastern Black-eared, but which of this toughest of pairs? Never have photographs of preening birds been analysed so carefully, revealing apparent pale bases to some of the mantle feathers. This apparently meant it was most likely an Eastern Black-eared, but DNA analysis will have the final say whether it is one, or whether it is a hybrid.
Isabelline Wheatears also featured strongly this month, with one on Bardsey Island, Gwynedd (10th to 16th), and one at Gibraltar Point NNR, Lincolnshire, identified from photographs. Plus there was an expected smattering of probables, which largely turned out to be bogstandard (Northern) Wheatears.
Also subtle, but ‘do-able’ by those in the know, are ‘olivaceous warblers’: Eastern and Western Olivaceous Warblers (or Olivaceous and Isabelline Warblers, if you prefer). Anyhow, an Eastern Olivaceous Warbler was a very popular bird in Blackthorns at Farlington Marshes, Hampshire.
Shrike it lucky
While we are in the territory of all birds ‘Isabelline’, one of the star birds on Shetland, this month, was an Isabelline Shrike at Levenwick (Mainland), late in the month. There was some confusion as to whether it was a Turkestan Shrike or a Daurian Shrike (the two species currently recognised, which were previously thought of as Isabelline subspecies). When better quality photos emerged, it was shown to be most likely a Daurian Shrike.
Less problematic, but even rarer, was a Brown Shrike found on Out Skerries (also Shetland) on the same day (28th).
There have been just about 23 accepted Brown Shrikes in the UK, with nearly all seen this millennium (with five in each of 2013 and 2016). But the very long-staying bird at Staines Moor, London, in 2009 into 2010 means it is on the lists of most birders who ‘wanted’ it... It is a similar story with Blue Rock Thrush (fewer than 10 accepted), where the long-staying bird in Gloucestershire from 2016 to spring 2017 means it does not have quite the excitement value it should have. That said, the finding of a first-winter on St Mary’s, Scilly (22nd) was still exceptional stuff.
Other exceptional finds during September included a Little Crake at Blacktoft Sands, East Yorkshire (17th); a Common Nighthawk seen in flight at Appin, Argyll; a probable American Horned Lark photographed on St Kilda, Outer Hebrides, on 12th; and, on the same archipelago, a juvenile Hudsonian Whimbrel
(from 7th to 11th).
Kent is the undisputed hotspot for Short-toed Treecreeper, (hogging 21 of 29 accepted UK records), and it delivered again, with one found creeping on metal (rather than a tree) at Langdon Cliffs NT on 21st.
On the other hand, the Buff-bellied Pipit found on Bardsey, Gwynedd, on 28th, was the first for Wales. This was just preceded by an Eastern Yellow Wagtail at Cemlyn Bay, Anglesey (25th to 27th).
A taste of the rest
This leaves barely any room to mention a remarkable influx of Rustic Buntings, in the last week of the month, with birds found on Foula, Shetland, South Shields, Co. Durham, North Ronaldsay, Orkney, St Mary’s, Scilly, and at Spurn YWT, East Yorkshire. Or to touch on the season’s wave of Semipalmated Sandpipers (and other North American sandpipers) plus American Golden Plovers galore; let alone the Bonelli’s Warblers, Wrynecks and seabirds…
And you just know there will be even more rare delights, next month. Watch this space.