What a spring it has been on Fair Isle! It was a bit of a slow-burner early in the season, although the Blue Tit found and identified by our youngest daughter Freyja in late March was not only a great bird, but the 200th species for our all-important Shirva croft list.
However, a sustained spell of easterly-based winds from late April brought record counts of several scarcities, as well as some memorable falls of migrants. As May drew towards a close, the pace of rarer visitors had picked up a bit, with subalpine warbler, Rustic Bunting and Tawny Pipit all new for the year for the island, as were a couple of European Nightjars, including one I found in our garden on 27 May (species 202 for the croft).
By 29 May, the wind was just starting to swing more northerly – never great for Fair Isle, but if you're feeling optimistic, a switch in the wind can drop birds. I was trying to decide whether I could fit in a visit to Dronger, in the far north of the isle, where I just had a feeling that a big rarity that had been powering on from somewhere far east of us would meet the headwind and decide to pitch in for a rest. But with the sun shining and Mainland Shetland still very visible, I wasn't sure that would work, and I had various other jobs to be getting on with anyway.
One task I'd recently volunteered for was checking base stations that were recording details of tagged European Shag movements. These had been deployed by an NTS team (including ex-FIBO assistant warden Ciaran Hatsell, who added Goosander to the Shirva croft list for species 201 during his stay!) for a Fair Isle Marine Research Organisation project.
I have really missed working with seabirds since being made redundant by Fair Isle Bird Observatory (FIBO) in spring of 2021, so it felt good to be contributing to work with these birds again. Having downloaded data from three of the base stations already, I was only needing to visit South Green. As it was approaching 5 pm, I decided to tie that in with an afternoon check of our sheep, so went through our parks to the coast, and down towards the base station, with the option of checking the always promising looking grassland at the base of Malcolm's Head. That was the plan, at least …
The sheep were fine, Linni Geo and Steensi Geo were empty of migrants, but then a warbler popped out from an old sheep cru (a dry-stone wall shelter) just behind Steensi Geo. It landed on a nearby fence, hidden from view behind a post. I was about to change my position to get a better view when another warbler appeared from the same cru, but this one perched on top in full view and called; a dry, slightly electric chack.
David's find represents only the eighth record of Marmora's Warbler for Britain and the second for Shetland following another first-summer male on Unst in May 2018, which was also the most recent British individual (Steve Arlow).
It was a small, dark warbler with a crazily long, cocked tail. The call was rare, the shape was rare, the colour was rare – no doubt about it, this was a rare. Apart from the rarity claxon ringing in my brain, two thoughts went through my head. First, 'I should actually raise my bins now and look at it' and then, when I'd got over my initial paralysing shock, 'oh, that's a lot darker than a Dartford Warbler; that's a Marmora's Warbler'.
Dartford Warbler is an unlikely vagrant to Scotland, but has been recorded twice, at St Abb's Head and on Fair Isle, so was perhaps the one I was expecting this to be. Marmora's wasn't something I was considering at all (although there are also two Scottish records of that species, St Abb's Head, and Unst in May 2018). The all-over dark-blue plumage (just slightly paler below with a hint of spotting on the throat), bright red eye and eye ring, pale-based bill and striking orange legs, combined with the distinctive shape, made it an easy identification.
It was actually remarkably showy for a vagrant on a small section of dyke and I was expecting it to scoot off across the island at any moment, but it called another couple of times and hopped around its chosen patch of habitat for a while. I obviously had to get the news out while it was still co-operating, but at that point I found I'd somehow reset my phone so the keyboard would only work as a touchscreen using my finger as a pen (I had no idea it could do this, let alone how I'd done it).
I managed a very brief, slightly misspelled message, which contained none of the excitement I was feeling, or that the bird deserved, and also posted a brief message on X including one of my photo-binned shots (I managed a dark cocked tail, with the rest of the bird hidden behind a post). I'd love to claim I was as cool and calm as people seemed to think, but I must confess that it was simply technological ineptitude on my behalf!
The truth is I was in a giddy state that was good to feel again. It's taken a while to adjust to birding Fair Isle while not being part of the obs set-up after more than 10 years of being FIBO Warden – the feel of every census (and therefore every bird) counting towards something and the shared experience of every fall, new arrival and rarity just wasn't replicated by birding alone.
Marmora's Warbler breeds almost exclusively on Corsica and Sardinia. The species are generally resident, but some individuals migrate south to winter in North Africa (Alex Penn).
But now I have my croft list, and I'm finding enjoyment in what I find when I can. Soon, I was joined by my wife Susannah, other islanders, the obs team and visiting birders, and Freyja also came out for a look when she'd finished working on the school stand selling items to visitors from a cruise ship.
With the bird eventually showing well in the sunshine, the atmosphere was very convivial and soon messages started coming in from friends around the country (which I was eventually able to reply to when I finally worked out how to switch my phone back to a normal keyboard).
The Marmora's Warbler moved between a couple of other piles of stones and a ditch at one point, before returning to feed on its original cru. At this point, I left the 'crowd' and headed north to look back on the bird. My views from here were considerably worse, more distant and into the sun, but crucially, I was now stood on Shirva croft land, making it species 203 for our list! It seemed like an incredibly 'birder' thing to do, but I liked the fact that everyone there understood the importance of it!
As it was feeding, but then also resting for prolonged periods, the feeling was that it was a fresh arrival (interestingly, it was not heard calling again), especially as it was almost as far south-west as it was possible to be in Fair Isle. It moved to the Gilsetter area the following day, where it remained until 1 June. Here, it was trapped and confirmed as a first-summer male, the age most expected to occur as a vagrant.
