I have now finished my identifications from the Sandwich Bay Coleopterists’ Meeting (31st August to 2nd September 2012) and have also received records from Eric Philp, James McGill, Kevin Chuter, Martin Collier, Peter McMullen, Roger Booth, Simon Horsnall and Tony Allen. Between us we recorded 273 species of beetle (and 36 species of other invertebrates, including spiders, millipedes, dragonflies, bush-crickets, bugs, flies, bees, wasps, ants, moths and snails).

One of the highlights for me was the discovery of the phalacrid beetle Olibrus norvegicus new to Britain, as well as an intriguing featherwing-beetle specimen of the genus Ptenidium. Another major discovery was of the dung-beetle Euheptaulacus sus which was found by Roger Booth (from a light trap), Tony Allen (by evening sweeping) and James McGill. It is many decades since this dung-beetle was recorded from Kent.

Amongst the beetles were 7 Red Data Book, 1 Near Threatened and 36 Nationally Scarce species. In total, 16% of the beetles recorded during the meeting have conservation status, a figure which is consistent with top sites of national importance for invertebrate conservation.

A spreadsheet containing a species list and a worksheet of all records from the meeting can be downloaded here.

 
The meeting did not formally start until Saturday morning (1st September) but most people travelled down on the Friday and the results include records from Friday afternoon and evening. In my case, I worked the area seaward of the Chequer’s Inn, Deal, where I had found Amara spreta, Melanotus punctolineatus and many other interesting beetles on a previous visit in 1999. This was also the area where Eric Philp recorded Ophonus cordatus although a few decades earlier. On a warm and still evening, I gave the Autokatcher a spin, driving back from the Chequer’s Inn to our accommodation at the Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory. It yielded a massive sample of mostly very small beetles, including the Ptenidium mentioned above and an impressive five species that I’d never seen before. Only one of the five (Omalium exiguum) is actually Nationally Scarce but the Autokatcher seems to be a good way of finding beetles that I don’t bump into using my normal fieldcraft. After dining together at an Indian restaurant in Sandwich village, a small party donned headtorches and headed out with sweep-nets to the dunes north of the Prince’s Golf Course clubhouse. This was when I found Olibrus norvegicus new to Britain though of course it wasn’t until a few days later that I dissected them and realised what they were. Of the species recognisable on the night, one of the most interesting finds was a single individual of the tenebrionid beetle Xanthomus pallidus.

After much loitering in the Bird Observatory car park on Saturday morning, the meeting got underway with people dispersing in small groups, some back to Chequer’s Inn, others to the Prince’s Golf Club dunes and some walking out to the north in search of Dune Tiger-beetle Cicindela maritima. It was a good day for carabids with several people finding Amara curta, and with several other scarce carabids being recorded: Amara fulva, Amara equestris, Harpalus serripes, Dicheirotrichus obsoletus, Panagaeus bipustulatus, Masoreus wetterhallii and Demetrias monostigma. We dined at a good Thai restaurant in the evening, followed by more torchlight fieldwork.

On the Sunday, while some carried on with fieldwork at Sandwich Bay, a few of us visited the other site for which permission had been arranged: Blean Woods RSPB Reserve. Martin Collier and I tackled a wood ants’ nest – the first time either of us had attempted to find beetles in such a potentially painful microhabitat! We soon discovered that the ants were remarkably placid and the whole experience was surprisingly painless. However, there were very few beetles evident in the field (only three individual beetles in my sample, only one of which (Gyrohypnus atratulus) was an ant-nest specialist). Martin wisely took his sample home and put it in an extractor which yielded a specimen of Myrmetes piceus. Meanwhile, Roger Booth and Tony Allen were beating dead and dying branches and amongst a good list of saproxylic beetles, found the Vulnerable anthribid beetle Pseudeuparius sepicola off a dead oak branch.

Martin sieving a wood ants' nest at Blean Woods.

I really enjoyed this meeting, not just because Sandwich Bay is such a great place for beetles but also for the chance to socialise with other coleopterists over the course of the weekend. I enjoy it enough to be thinking of organising another weekend field meeting but I’m not going to do that until 2014 (probably at Orford Ness). Meanwhile, if anyone else wants to organise a meeting, it doesn’t have to be a lot of work: pick your location and dates, suggest somewhere people could stay but leave them to make their own arrangements, make a restaurant booking in the evening, and arrange with the BENHS to extend their insurance to cover the meeting. That really is all it takes. Following the successful examples of Dungeness in 2010 and Sandwich Bay in 2012, both based around bird observatories, a couple of obvious venues to try are Portland Bill Bird Observatory and Lizard Point Youth Hostel.

Sphaerosoma pilosum, Britain's only alexiid beetle.

I knocked it off a log with a white crustose polypore fungus, lying on the ground in calcareous woodland near Aston Clinton, Buckinghamshire. I have now seen 96 of the 103 families of British beetles. Of the remaining seven families, six are represented by single British species that are either rare, very difficult to find, or Scottish. The seventh family is the Bostrichidae with five species on the British list and it is high time I bumped into one of them.

Another exciting find on the same outing was this Anommatus duodecimstriatus, found under bark on the underside of an Elder log pressed into the soil. This is one of Britain’s 13 species of blind beetle, previously featured on this blog after some turned up in my garden. It did two remarkable things, for a beetle. One, it just turned round and round on the spot rather than running away (maybe being blind has its disadvantages when someone disturbs your hiding place). And two, it clung on to the log despite me dropping it from waist height!

Anommatus duodecimstriatus, one of Britain's 12 blind beetles.

Recent attempts at fieldwork have felt pretty futile so it is good to have finally found some decent beetles. Looking forward to spring really getting going now!

A male Ptenidium from Sandwich Bay, East Kent from an Autokatcher sample on 31st August 2012. It is an unusual specimen of P. pusillum (or maybe an additional species of the pusillum-complex?). Click for large photo.

It is closest to P. pusillum (probably the commonest British species of the genus) but differs most strikingly in having much deeper and more extensive puncturation on the elytra. In addition, it has slightly more elongate elytra with less strongly rounded sides, elytral hairs a little shorter, pronotum sides a little more strongly rounded and with slightly broader side-margins, and the antennal clubs a little darker than the average pusillum. Michael Darby kindly examined it and agreed that it could be a species new to Britain, but what?

I sent my photo to Mikael Sörensson in Lund, Sweden who is an expert on European ptiliids and got an excellent response. In fact, Mikael’s reaction was that this looks the same as specimens of P. pusillum which he sees from Sweden and continental Europe. P. pusillum is apparently highly variable in body shape, colour of body and appendages, and also length of the pubescence. Mikael was struck by the somewhat darkened last two antennal segments of my specimen but has seen such colouration before in occasional specimens. So the conclusion is that “your specimen is a mere variant of P. pusillum“.

However, Mikael stressed that “because of the external variation, the taxon ‘P. pusillum‘ seems complex and might include ‘hidden’ taxa within. Viewed on a western Palaearctic level it is extremely difficult to tell if we have one single, much variable species, or two (or more?) ‘hidden’ within. Until we have applied other methods (molecular) for separating populations and variants on a pan-European basis I hesitate to split P. pusillum and therefore regard it as one single variable species”.

So what next? Mikhael writes: “It would be nice to uncover more specimens from that part of Britain, and also from France, in order to get an idea of the local variation. The problem of P. pusillum sensu lato is indeed intriguing and calls for more work”. I plan to pay much closer attention to Ptenidium, especially if I’m on the Kent coast, and I’d be interested to hear from anyone who has found similar specimens in Britain or abroad.

It would also be good to start applying molecular techniques to these kinds of taxonomic problems but I still don’t know of anyone who I can send a beetle to, with a cheque enclosed, and get it sequenced. Any suggestions?

Acknowledgements
I thank Michael Darby, Peter Hammond and Mikael Sörensson for helpful discussions and for sharing their expertise. As always, I have Darren Mann and James Hogan (of the Hope Department of Entomology, Oxford University Museum of Natural History) to thank for allowing me to use their auto-montage kit.

 
This spreadsheet only includes records from myself, Roger Booth, Martin Collier, Andrew Duff and the late Eric Philp. (Apologies to James McGill who did submit his records but I lost them when I hit trouble with my old @carabids.fsnet.co.uk email address).

We recorded 187 species of beetle, and a scattering of invertebrates from other groups (woodlice, bugs, ants, etc.) to bring the total species list up to 212. Perhaps not an impressively long list but awash with rarities, as you’d expect from Dungeness. The list includes 37 Nationally Scarce or Near Threatened species and 4 Red Data Book species; collectively 19.3% of the species had conservation status. That’s about as good as it gets in terms of the proportion of rare and scarce invertebrates in Britain. My highest ever percentage from my invertebrate survey work was 22.8% – from Dungeness RSPB Reserve!

In my account of the meeting posted online just a month afterwards, I wrote:
    ”For Dungeness virgins there was much to see but for veterans, the pit margins were disappointing by the high standards of years past. Most people, including myself, have yet to finish identifying their specimens, or send in their records, but as far as I know there were no sightings of any of these carabids: Acupalpus maculatus, Dyschirius obscurus, Bradycellus distinctus, Bembidion caeruleum, Bembidion decorum, Bembidion pallidipenne or Bembidion semipunctatum.”
Well only one species on that list turned up; Bembidion decorum was found by Martin Collier and Roger Booth.

I also wrote:
    ”But once all the samples are identified, and the records are in, what’s the betting that Dungeness will surprise us and yield yet another first for Britain?”
I think I may have fulfilled that prophecy but that will have to be the subject of a separate blog …

I’d like to repeat my thanks to Pete Akers and Mark Gurney of the RSPB for hosting the meeting and to Dave Walker for letting us take over the Dungeness Bird Observatory. The insurance for the meeting was provided by the BENHS; without their support meetings like this would not be feasible.

Glocianus punctiger. A male from Derbyshire, typical of British specimens.

Glocianus punctiger. An atypical male from Sutton Bingham Reservoir, Somerset.

… and I thought my Sutton Bingham Reservoir specimen had to be something new to Britain. But they are both specimens of Glocianus punctiger. That is the opinion of Italian weevil expert Enzo Colonnelli, and there is nobody with greater experience of these species across Europe.

I haven’t found Glocianus weevils very often, though more so in recent years as I’ve started to use my suction sampler more and more routinely. To date I have recorded Glocianus distinctus on 5 occasions (6 individuals), G. punctiger on 4 occasions (4 individuals) and have not yet found the other two British species: G. moelleri and G. pilosellus. I’ve been keying them out using Mike Morris’ RES Handbook (Morris, 2008) but also dissecting males as a matter of routine. The two males pictured here are the only two males of G. punctiger that I have found. I thought I’d been lucky and discovered a species new to Britain but actually I’d been unlucky and found a specimen with really unusual genitalia! Anyway, it seems worthwhile to bring this to other peoples’ attention, especially as this is an extreme degree of variation to find within one species. I will certainly be dissecting and retaining any other male punctiger I find, to learn more about the variability of aedeagal structure in British populations. And as Enzo has said: “variation is the engine of evolution”!

Glocianus punctiger feeds on dandelions Taraxacum, mainly the Section Ruderalia which is by far the commonest Section of this large genus, and mostly includes micro-species which are weeds of lowland areas. Although the host plants are widespread and abundant, the weevil is much more restricted, typically being found in grasslands, waste places, at the sides of roads and tracks, in woods and in open and rough ground generally (Morris, 2008). It occurs very locally throughout England and Wales and has Nationally Scarce (Nb) conservation status.

Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to Mike Morris for all his help in investigating the identity of the Sutton Bingham specimen and for putting me in touch with Enzo Colonnelli, to whom I am very grateful for letting me have his opinions on my photographs. As ever, I am indebted to James Hogan, Zoe Simmons and Darren Mann at the Hope Department of Entomology, Oxford University Museum of Natural History, for access to their digital auto-montage equipment. The atypical specimen from Sutton Bingham Reservoir was found during surveys of the invertebrates of unimproved grassland habitats for Wessex Water.

Reference
Morris, M.G. (2008). True weevils (part II) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae, Ceutorhynchinae). Handbooks for the identification of British insects, vol. 5, part 17c. St Albans: Royal Entomological Society.

Or should I say, “one other coleopterist”. I’ve just used the OUMNH collections to confirm that some small, blackish-brown aleocharine staphylinids that I collected at Sandwich Bay, East Kent on 3rd July 2012 are Ousipalia caesula.

Ousipalia caesula: demystified

Ousipalia caesula spermatheca

It must be common here as I found 14 in a few minutes suction-sampling on the calcareous dune grassland just seaward of the road to the Prince’s Golf Club at TR360582. I was actually targeting Yarrow, as much as you can target one plant with a suction-sampler in such floristically diverse turf. The habitat fits with Marc Tronquet’s (2006) description for France: “on sandy ground, under lichens and in the flower spikes of Aira canescens“, except that Grey Hair-grass Corynephorus canescens (= Aira canescens) is absent from Kent and more prevalent on East Anglian dunes and a few spots in the Brecks (map here).

So Ousipalia caesula is probably no longer one of the most mysterious. We can’t say that it is a well understood species but it is only averagely mysterious: so many beetles are so poorly known! My guess with Ousipalia is that it is a habitat-specialist of dry, sandy ground with very short vegetation, good cover of bare ground, mosses and lichens, and perhaps favouring calcareous sites. It probably deserves to be regarded as Nationally Scarce, maybe even Red Data Book?

I would be interested to hear from anyone with more information on this beetle.

Thanks to James Hogan and Zoe Simmons at the Hope Department of Entomology, Oxford University Museum of Natural History for allowing me to take these montage photographs with their kit.

Reference
Tronquet, M. (2006). Catalogue iconographique des Coléoptères des Pyrénées-Orientales. Vol. 1: Staphylinidae. Supplément au Tome XV de la Revue de l’Association Roussillonnaise d’Entomologie. Perpignan: Association Roussillonnaise d’Entomologie.

As I’d hoped, the yellow lichen was easily identified using online keys as Xanthoria parietina: a very common lichen.

Xanthoria parietina

What I hadn’t bargained for was that, under the microscope there were clearly other lichens on the twig of a much less conspicuous nature. Using this key, I made the one with black “wine gum” fruits Lecidella elaeochroma and Simon Davey agrees.

Lecidella elaeochroma: "wine gum" fruits according to the key, though they remind me of tiny Pontefract cakes!

Slightly more difficult to identify was this species with “jam tart” fruits. With Simon’s help, I’ve got it to Lecanora chlarotera. I was pleased enough with three lichens on my random twig but then as a further bonus, Simon pointed out that the black dots in some of the tart fillings are caused by a parasitic (or lichenicolous) fungus by the name of Vouauxiella lichenicola. Just amazing!

Lecanora chlarotera: with "jam tart" fruits. It's a very insipid-looking jam tart, more like an undercooked bakewell.

There was a negative reaction to a drop of thin bleach.

Lecanora chlarotera under a drop of thin bleach.

I’ve been seriously impressed at how many species people have already racked up for their squares, with Seth Gibson topping the table at the end of January with a mighty 248 species. I’ve also been seriously impressed at the way so many of the participants are taking a truly pan-species approach and boldly tackling Britain’s biodiversity in its entirety. So, the 1000 1ksq challenge has aroused my competitive spirit, and shamed me into trying to identify things that I normally ignore (like lichens, mosses, earthworms, springtails, etc.). Here are today’s results.

First a few photos, then my species lists for today.

My first attempt at identifying a springtail. Probably Pogonognathus flavescens.

Yellow Slug Limacus flavus

Deroceras invadens Reise, Hutchinson, Schunack & Schlitt, 2011. A new name for the species previously known in Britain as Deroceras panormitanum.

Tandonia sowerbyi

A terrestrial flatworm Microplana terrestris. This was a tick, but through administrative oversight: I'm pretty sure I've identified it before.

An overwintering Woundwort Shieldbug Eysarcoris venustissimus (was E. fabricii).

I did manage to identify three species of earthworm from the garden but this was one of at least two additional species that I failed to name.

Woodlice
Just the ‘famous five’: Armadillidium vulgare, Oniscus asellus, Porcellio scaber, Philoscia muscorum and Trichoniscus pusillus/ provisorius.

Millipedes
Polydesmus coriaceus
Cylindroiulus britannicus

Centipedes
Stigmatogaster subterranea
Geophilus insculptus - a tick! Common and widespread species.
Lithobius microps

Terrestrial flatworms
Microplana terrestris - identified by comparing to Brian Eversham’s photos on flickr. Pretty sure Brian has shown me this species in the past but it wasn’t on my list, so a tick!

Earthworms: identified using the iSpot keys. A completely new group for me and I was amazed at how many species occur in the garden. I identified three but saw at least two others which defied confident identification.
Lumbricus castaneus Chestnut Worm
Lumbricus rubellus Redhead Worm
Eisenia fetida Brandling Worm. A banded worm, common in our compost bin, and curiously malodorous when handled.

Slugs: the MolluscIreland site is very useful for slug identification, with Roy Anderson’s expert ID tips and his photos.
Limacus flavus
Tandonia budapestensis
Tandonia sowerbyi
Deroceras reticulatum
Deroceras invadens (was panormitanum) – thanks to Christian Owen for bringing me up to date!
Arion hortensis/distinctus - still not sure about these.
Arion rufus - with a bright orange foot fringe. Exhibiting a rocking response, which should be less strong than Arion ater though I’m in no position to judge that.

Snails
Oxychilus cellarius
Discus rotundatus
Lauria cylindracea
Cornu aspersum
Hygromia cinctella
Vallonia costata
Vallonia excentrica
Trochulus striolatus

Beetles
Leistus spinibarbis (Carabidae)
Notiophilus biguttatus (Carabidae)
Tachyporus hypnorum (Staphylinidae)
Lobrathium multipunctum (Staphylinidae)
Xantholinus linearis (Staphylinidae)

Bugs
Eysarcoris venustissimus

Springtails
Pogonognathus flavescens? Keyed out nicely in Frans Janssens’ “Key to common surface dwelling species of Collembola from the UK“. But I never like to assume I’ve not found something rare!

Mosses
Bryum capillare - leaves became “corkscrew-like” when dry.
Tortula muralis

Vertebrates
Common Frog

Brings me up to a mere 117 species for my square.

Some highlights, illustrating how many recently arrived species can be found by searching in muck-heaps of various sorts.

Edaphus beszedesi (Staphylinidae, Euaesthetinae) was discovered new to Britain c.2006 by Peter Hammond from two heaps near Windsor, and published by Lott and Anderson (2011). I found it at a stable in south Bucks in 2008 but it still doesn’t seem to have been turned up by many other people.

Euconnus duboisi (Staphylinidae, Scydmaeninae). This was new to me and had me really puzzled. Given the very real chance of discovering beetles new to Britain in this sort of habitat, I was already thinking along those lines when I couldn’t key it to any of the known British scydmaenine genera. But in discussion with Peter Hammond, I’m pretty satisfied that it is E. duboisi. This species was added to the British list in 1945 (too late to be included in Joy’s keys) and is not included in Freude, Harde and Lohse vol. 3.

There don't appear to be any other images of Euconnus duboisi on the internet, and it is quite a perplexing species to identify with the usual literature. So hopefully this photo will help others who may come across it.

Cryptophilus integer (Erotylidae). At the time, this species had the cachet of being the sole British member of the family Languriidae but the 2012 checklist has lumped it in with Erotylidae. It is an extremely dull little brown job, resembling a Cryptophagus. It was discovered new to Britain c.2007 but has been found quite widely in London and surrounding area, mostly in woodchip heaps.

Hypomedon debilicornis (Staphylinidae, Paederinae) was discovered, new to Britain, in Northamptonshire in 1989 from solidified farm slurry. It was next reported from a manure heap in North Hampshire in 1996. I know of more recent records for Surrey, Norfolk, Bucks and Berks and I think it has become more widely established.

Mycetophagus quadriguttatus (Mycetophagidae) is a Nationally Scarce (Na) saproxylic found in association with fungi and mouldy debris of old broad-leaved trees. However, it also occurs in synanthropic situations such as food-stores, granaries and stables (in mouldy hay). Seems to be turning up more frequently in recent years.

Clambus simsoni (Clambidae) was added to the British list in 1997 and has become a fairly regular feature of woodchip piles.

Sericoderus lateralis (Corylophidae). A single female was the first I’d seen since 2004 of this once common species which appears to have been largely usurped by the Australian S. brevicornis (as discussed here).

My species list, with the ones I’d not seen before in bold.

First stop on day one (Friday 28th Sept) was the Swinister Burn, to relive day one of my trip in 2010 when Juan Brown found a White’s Thrush here. Would our trip get off to a similar start?

The trip got off to a great start with close views of PG Tips Locustella certhiola in Tesco.

Our plan was to stay on Bressay, a grossly underwatched island. It doesn’t seem that many rare birds have been found on Bressay in the past but surely that’s down to lack of coverage? Check out this map of the island annotated with some rarities of the past. On our first evening, we checked the garden of our accommodation and two adjacent gardens. We saw a Pied Flycatcher (one of only three reported on Shetland during our stay), a Common Redstart and heard a Tree/Olive-backed Pipit. Promising … birds that arrived in the south-easterlies earlier in the week may still be lingering.

Next morning, we headed to Gorie. It is the remotest croft on Bressay, down about a mile of rough track with our hire car’s underparts clunking along the ridge. Gareth found a Barred Warbler in the plantation straight away – an overdue self-found tick for him. It already had blackberry juice all over its face and had clearly been feeding up at Gorie for a few days already, and was still there on our last visit on 5th Oct. There was a Chiff-chaff in the garden which also stayed throughout.

Gorie: this is where the 1983 Hawk Owl came after it left Frakkafield!!! Noss in the distance.

Barred Warbler at Gorie

If birds like Barred Warbler are still around, what else might have stayed on Bressay from earlier in the week? By late afternoon we’d worked a lot of gardens and found just one more Chiff-chaff and 3 north-western Redpolls. We found a flock of perhaps 800 Golden Plover and scoped them at long range in buffeting wind. Almost inevitably, there was one bird that looked quite good for a moulting adult American Goldie but by the time we got our scopes set up in a more sheltered spot, it had gone out of view. We decided to come back to it another day but we never saw the flock again, and a moulting adult American Goldie was found on mainland that afternoon.

Juan had recommended we keep an eye on Gunnista at the north end of the island so there we were at about 4.45 when a warbler flushed out of the Holmview garden. We didn’t quite see where it went but Gareth checked one way and I the other. I guessed right, and the bird was sitting out on top of a stone wall … a Booted Warbler! For the brief while it was in view, hopping away along the wall, I was trying to call and wave to Gareth without scaring it off. But he arrived in time only to see it flit round the corner.

Now Gareth and I have history with Booted Warbler. Within an hour of arriving on Scilly for my first visit in 1985, I had gripped Gareth off on Booted Warbler while he went off to pay our camping fees – read the story here. I’ve seen three more since whereas Gareth has dipped three. There is no bird I would rather find for him. But that wet and windy evening at Gunnista with the clock ticking and the light fading, it was starting to look bad. I could hardly submit a rarity description saying “I instinctively knew it was a Booted Warbler … err, that’s it” and Gareth’s long wait to see this species could go on for another 27 years …

Then at 5.35 it flushed again from the Holmview garden, I saw where it went and ran round to view the back of the other garden, turning my camera on. It was there, and I blasted off a load of shots. They’re not great photos by any means but enough to nail the identification, and Gareth was there on my shoulder finally to put away a long-standing bogey.

Booted Warbler at Gunnista

Booted Warbler at Gunnista

Gunnista with the Holmview garden on the right.

Phew! We didn’t see it again before dusk and sadly could not find it the next morning with a few carloads of twitchers to help the search (in very wet and windy conditions) nor the following afternoon when the weather had improved. Spreading out, we put up a couple of Jack Snipe, found another two Redstarts, 3 Redwings, a couple of Mealy Redpolls, a Yellow-browed Warbler, a Willow Warbler and a Chiff-chaff. In the evening, with news of a Pechora Pipit at Norwick on Unst, we decided to get the first ferry off Bressay on Monday morning and head north. I saw a Pechora on Fair Isle in September 2006 and it was brilliant – well worth seeing again.

Monday at Norwick gave us the best and the worst of Shetland twitching. Access to the Pechora Pipit’s fields had been withdrawn by the landowner. But eventually a few flushers went in, and those of us standing on the road got flight views. With the owner looking on, attended to by a few placatory birders, we left. There was more mob trespass later and had we stuck around we’d have seen it much better but it is hard to feel too regretful. The Hornemann’s Arctic Redpoll at Norwick was a cracker though, and quite fearless feeding on mayweed seed-heads.

The Snowball: Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll

Our first Otter of the trip was at Toft, as we returned to mainland Shetland, a tick for Gareth. We then got good views of the drake Surf Scoter at Foula Wick, good views of the Spotted Sandpiper at Lower Voe, flight views of probably the Buff-bellied Pipit as it flushed off Rerwick Beach, and good views of the Siberian Stonechat at the Swinister Burn in the last of the daylight. Back on Bressay at 11 pm I heard a flock of Whoopers come in from the east over the house. At dawn next morning they were on the loch and took off, three pairs with three young, to carry on over to the mainland.

On Tuesday we were back to working Bressay. After drawing a blank with a flight-only warbler sp. at Kirkabister (one of several that got away), we then located a robin-like bird in our garden. It was silent and mega-skulking, mostly glimpsed in deep shade, and kept us going in circles. Eventually, after well over an hour of stealthy pursuit, Gareth stationed himself looking at a slim gap, while I commando-crawled through the shrubbery. It showed in the gap – a Robin! The rest of the day yielded a new abietinus Chiff-chaff, a Blackcap, 10 Wigeon, a Grey Heron and two Otters. A bit of a dull day but the wind turned south-easterly for a while during the night – would this be enough to bring in some new birds?

Otter

Gareth caught on a barbed wire fence. Naturally, my first instinct was to offer a helping hand but Gareth asked if I would take some commemorative photos instead. He then took a couple of heartfelt electric shocks off the next fence before we were chased out of the field by a herd of bullocks.

We had perfectly still weather from dawn on Wednesday – a rare treat on Shetland. At Gorie, we could hear the bill-snapping of the Goldcrests in the plantation and the distant calls of Red Grouse on the moors above. But the only new bird was a call-only Lapland Bunting going over. Other new birds for the day were 3 Blackcaps, 2 Willow Warblers, 14 Red-breasted Mergansers, a Red-throated Diver, our fourth Bressay Redstart, 4 Dunlin and 13 Knot. Steve Blain and friends came over to Bressay for the day and also noted an increase in Blackcaps but nothing else new for their efforts. Gareth got an afternoon flight to Fair Isle but wasn’t able to relocate the Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler in South Harbour before dark.

With a day to myself on Thursday, I decided to bird Gorie and then walk the cliffs of the east coast down to Bard Head at the south-east tip. It wasn’t a decision likely to yield many good birds but I wanted a change of scene and a day off from driving from one garden to another. The scenery was spectacular and there were lots of good sheltered geos to peer into, though Rock Pipits, Meadow Pipits and a Skylark were the only passerines to be seen.

Rock arch at Huster Roo

Lots of Fulmars still on the cliffs.

Skylark.

A ancient hut on the cliff-top. Amazing to think of people living here, burning peat, wearing seal skins, sleeping in Eider down, and dining on Great Auks?

The east coast of Bressay.

Stoura Clett rock arch, looking towards the Noup of Noss.

A Whinchat on stone walls near Gorie was my only new bird of the day and one of only two on Shetland during our stay. Although I neglected the crofts, Dave Bradnum and a mate were over on Bressay for the day and worked it hard, finding the abietinus Chiff, one of our Redstarts and a few Blackcaps.

Friday was another calm and sunny day which at least made the birding easy but the only contenders for new birds were a Bar-tailed Godwit and a flock of 7 redpolls which only touched down briefly. Gareth returned from Fair Isle with Lanceolated Warbler on his list.

For our last full day we went off to the mainland twitching again and dipped absolutely everything we went for. A miserable experience which we basically repeated on Sunday morning before catching our flight south in the afternoon. ‘Nuff said.

Thoughts: Is Bressay any good? I reckon it’s got a lot of potential if you want an island to yourself to find some rare birds, given that Unst, Foula, Fair Isle and the Ness are all well covered. But having spent 10 days there in westerlies, we haven’t really proved it one way or the other. But one day someone will do Bressay during a good spell of south-easterlies and then we’ll see. Everyone we met was really friendly and interested, and generously allowed us to walk through their fields or even into their gardens. I recommend the Crofthouse self-catering: sleeps two (a double bed and a good sofa-bed) and is in one of the best gardens in the south of the island. And there’s a regular 7-minute ferry journey into Lerwick if you want to bird elsewhere.

Was it a good trip? Yes, but if it hadn’t been for finding the Booted Warbler, I’d be disappointed. And we could so easily have missed that bird, or never clinched it. I still think that it would be much better to go for two weeks. I know there are people who’ve endured two weeks of continuous westerlies but you’re at least giving yourself much better odds of some easterly winds.

Why is birding Shetland so hard? A lot of the birds we saw were ridiculously shy! Every bird needs to make a judgement when it detects someone approaching whether to carry on foraging, or to burn energy in flying away. How close they let you get (their ‘flight distance’) is an expression of their judgement of the risk you pose versus the time and energy expenditure of flying away. Most of the warblers, redstarts, thrushes, robins, finches, etc that we saw were insanely frightened of us, like you’d glimpse them flying out of the back corner of the garden when you were still 100m away, bombing off across open fields. Why so obviously maladapted? Does the lack of cover make them paranoid? Why can’t they all be like Horny Redpolls? It’s just so not fair, etc., etc.

Uncropped photo of a disgracefully showy Willow Warbler which could easily have flown far, far away: "you've let your self down, you've let your genus down, you've let your family down ..."