It has been a very long winter away from North Ronaldsay, to where I now return for my fifth year working at North Ronaldsay Bird Observatory, and my second year trying my hardest to fill the role of Assistant Warden. Having left the island at the beginning of December last year, at the time I was looking forward to getting away from the short days and very long nights, but now I have been back a couple of weeks the novelty of the place has returned and the cold northerly blasts of wind fill me with anticipation for the year ahead.
My winter away was mostly uneventful and contained very little actual birding. It was mostly spent at my parent's house in the depths of Yorkshire, with a few weekends away catching up with people and life that so quickly gets abandoned when I return to the island. I find getting motivated to even pick up my bins almost impossible when I am away, without the neatly defined little areas of the island I am now very lucky to call my patch. Looking back at my notebook at the dates proceeding my departure, a small spell of enthusiasm as me and George Gay picked up bits on our way south very quickly became two months of nothingness. In ten days on our prolonged trip back to my parent's, involving a few days birding Highland with friends, we managed some decent birds. Mainland Orkney provided us with American Wigeon, and Slamannan got Taiga Bean Goose ticked. However, it was the Cairngorm's where most of our targets lay. In what turned out to be a very fast and furious few days we secured Ptarmigan, Scottish Crossbill, Crested Tit, Red Grouse, Capercaillie, White-tailed Eagle, Black Grouse, and Golden Eagle.
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| Ptarmigan |
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| Ptarmigan |
We even got involved with ringing Crested Tit and Dipper, both species I had never seen in the hand before so it was great to spend the day getting up close with these species.
Leaving highland on the 15th December is where my motivation clearly started to dwindle. Smew and Red-crested Pochard at Tophill Low on 30th December are my final notes until 11th February when me and George headed for Fuerteventura. Getting back into birding on holiday was the breath of fresh air I needed, and not the stale suffocation of York which had me pining for North Ron again.
Fuerteventura was a great, relaxing holiday with some very decent birding. While the trip list maxed out at 66 species, I did manage eleven lifers. We did far too much to warrant going into too much detail here, some highlights for me included birding Tindaya for African Houbara Bustard and Cream-coloured Courser, and picking off barrancos that were filled with life in an otherwise endless desert. Perhaps the most exciting part of the trip was also our most shameful moment...
Arriving at a barranco on our way back to our accommodation, we flushed a wagtail that flushed quite some distance giving a really raspy call. Credit to George for setting the alarm bells going by saying it sounded quite like an Eastern Yellow Wag. We chased the bird round for the best part of an hour to the backdrop of the neighbourhood dogs going absolutely mental before we got pics and sound recording we were happy with. We left the dogs and their owners in peace, confident we had just found an Eastern Yellow Wag, tentative celebration beginning back at our accommodation with a beer. This was soon crushed though when a message came through that said the bird had been there since November! That will teach us to check ebird more often! Also rather embarrassingly, one of my favourite days was spent at the zoo laughing at a Common Sandpiper on a Hippo.
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| African Houbara Bustard |
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| Egyptian Vulture |
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| Common Sandpiper on a Hippo |
Back from Fuerteventura, the excited anticipation of getting back to North Ron really started to build. Quashed only slightly by the more imminent excitement of me and George getting a dog. Cue Stella the Border Collie entering and totally taking over our lives. I do not exaggerate when I say she is one of the best birding companions I have ever had (sorry George!), and she is already practicing her ditch and field flushing in eager hopes of finding Lanceys in the autumn.
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| Stella the Border Collie |
Our journey back to the island was thankfully uneventful, and car birding got us White-tailed Eagle as we drove through the Cairngorm's, and Iceland Gull once we got to Scrabster. We also lucked out on seeing a Humpback Whale briefly inside the pier wall at Scrabster. Once on mainland Orkney we had a little while before we had to catch our plane over to the island, so a quick tour of Tankerness got a Snow Goose lifer for me. This is where our good luck ended though and so ensued fruitless searches for a Kingfisher at Stromness and a Bittern at the Loons.
We arrived back on North Ronaldsay on 1st March to some classically cold and wet weather. However, the immediate sense of relief after stepping off the plane is unmatched to any feeling I get anywhere else. This is what I had been waiting for all through the winter; getting back to this little patch I now call home. There is always a fresh enthusiasm that gives me un-paralleled motivation to get out birding whenever I am here, and my winter slump could now end.
I did a big loop of the island on my second day back, and was immediately reminded why I love the place so much; fields, lochs, and coastline filled with birds. My reward for my slog round in the wind came at my last stop at Ancum Loch. A quick scan revealed a wader on the back bank that got my heart racing; Long-billed Dowitcher! I fired off a few record shots and sent them to George who confirmed my thoughts. This Dowitcher has been returning to the island for three years now, but its familiarity didn't make it any less exciting.
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| Long-billed Dowitcher |
The bird gave some decent flight views before landing closer to the hide. If being alone in a hide watching a Long-billed Dowitcher doesn't epitomise North Ronaldsay birding, then nothing does.
It didn't take too long for my luck to continue, when an early morning census around the south east corner of the island on 9th March got me an island and find tick. I was headed along the coast towards Brides Loch when the morning plane flew over, flushing a few Teal from the loch and a 'redhead' Smew! I watched as it vanished off to the north, hoping it would have just relocated to Hooking or Bewan, but unfortunately it wasn't seen again.
Spring really is edging closer here despite the horrible weather, with Stonechats moving through, Pied Wagtails showing up, and Skylarks starting to sing again. The season ahead searching for rarities, ringing chicks, and then searching for more rarities seems a long way off given the weather, but the time is being filled with trap maintenance, obs work, and a very needy dog.
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| Long-billed Dowitcher |
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| Stonechat |
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