Garry Bagnell's Birding World

At 3:37pm on Friday 6th June a very unpleasant incident occurred. The Pager Mega’d and I knew whatever the bird was, it was going to ruin the weekend with the family.

Correct Citril Finch, Fair Isle. I then spent to midnight, on the phone, surfing the web for ways in getting to Fair Isle without having to auction off some body parts to finance a charter.

I must have made 75 phone calls, mainly to charter boats on Orkney, Shetland & John O groats & charter planes

In the end I gave up feeling bloody depressed as it was almost impossible to get there or get there cheaply.

Then as if by magic, I managed to get a boat number from mainland Shetland to Fair Isle that was prepared to sail Sunday night at 7pm.

2 pager adverts went out simultaneously, Lift Offer from Sussex (2 spaces) and 10 boat spaces.

Eventually left my house at 00:01 Saturday morning and picked Chris Heard up in Berks then onto Tony Ford from Scarboro and finally John Bell was picked up at Dundee.

We arrived at Aberdeen Harbour at around 4pm on Saturday, just after rushing back from seeing the 3rd Whiskered Tern for Scotland at Loch of Strathbeg.

Then we bought single Aberdeen – Lerwick Ferry Ticket at £27.10 each. Boarded the ferry. I thought, as this was a first for Britain the ferry would be littered with twitchers. Well……….there was no other twitchers other than my party……but there was 2 bird watchers………….. Clive Byers and a very good brief that prevented Clive from going to prison, many years ago. If you read Birders Tales of a Tribe by Mark Cocker; Clive appears no less than 5 times. That is 5 times more than Mr Lee GR Evans of Little Chalfont fame.

The ferry departed soon after 5pm and it didn’t take Clive long to get pi**ed, approx 10 minutes from sailing.

Clive is an extremely entertaining & interesting guy who is responsible for painting many plates in Ornithological Books including Bunting & Sparrows, published by Pica press.

Clive & Chris spend many hours re-counting the good old days. Every now and then Clive would leave unannounced and come back empty handed even more p*ssed.

We arrived at Lerwick at around 07:30 and my boat charter man very kindly rang me on arrival and said the Weather forecast is not looking good for sailing to Fair Isle. "Oh great, no boats, no planes what do we do?" I said to my group

I noticed that a guy from Bolts Car Hire had been walking around with a board waiting for one of the Ferry Passengers. There must have been over 300 people on the Ferry. Most passengers could easily get off the ferry within 5 minutes.

It was now 8:30am and Bolts Car guy asked us if we knew "Clive Byers", we all laughed. I said "You can’t miss him, he is about 4 foot tall, ginger hair, reeks of Alcohol, and couldn’t walk in a straight line last time we saw him on the Ferry".

At 09:00 the Bolts Car Hire guy was just about to leave the ferry terminal when Clive and his solicitor arrive. The Bolts Car Hire guy gives the keys to Clive and hastily departs because he has to shoot off to sort his taxi business out.

Clive came to Shetland to show his solicitor friend breeding Red-necked Phalaropes on Fetlar. Did he catch the one and only early morning ferry that day? I don’t know, but I do know Clive set off the car alarm system and the engine become immobilised, and further still Bolts Hire Office was now closed to after midday.

Chris, Tony & I remained in the Ferry terminal to discuss the options for the day, while John went to get some breakfast.

Options were for us to hire a car and do some birding; have breakfast or stare at the 8:21am pager message reading "SHETLAND No sign of male Citril Finch in Barkland by 8am" and hoping RBA inserted "No sign of" by mistake.

John returned, 30 minutes later and he could not find anywhere to eat. We all then went in search of brekkie. During this sortie, I got a phone call from Paul Marten, who informed that the Terek Sandpiper was back in Sussex. (I missed it the previous week as I was in France). This is a seriously rare Sussex bird. The third ever record for Sussex, The previous record was 38 years ago and that stayed for a whole 20 minutes before flying off.

At 11am Somerfield Restaurant opened and we all eat. I had a full English/Scottish Breakfast and a Latte for less than £4.

At 11:30, we hired a car, and decided to go for the Marsh Warbler at Sumburgh Farm, on route at 11:53 I got a text from Deryk Shaw saying "Citril Finch still present but MOBILE".

Great news but how do we get there? We then tried more Charter Boats, Fishing Boats, Good Sheppard, Shetland based Helicopters/Islander, if only the Navy was there we could have hired a Nuclear Submarine. During all these conversations my mobile went dead. Chris was more organised than I was and he brought a phone charger for his phone, so he took over ringing around.

In desperation we now went to Sumburgh Airport to see if anybody could help. At the Airport sat the crème -dela-crème of British twitchers. It reminded me of a scene from the famous 1978 Science Fiction Film by Jack Finney called "Invasion of the BOAT Snatchers"…..In attendance was Mulvey, Clewes Jnr, Batty, Clifton, Piner, Goodman, Chapman and Mr & Mrs Holden,. All looking very happy eating Cavier and sipping Champagne. I went to the Café and was served a Coffee from Scottish Lass, who had a face that would give children nightmares. Thank god my daughter was not with me.

We left the Airport in search of fishing boats in the Scalloway harbour region. I must have spoken to every human being at the Port, begging for a trip on their boat to Fair Isle. They all said too dangerous, too far, weather too bad, would if the boat was working, busy tonight etc etc etc. Then onto Lerwick to try some more begging.

I got nowhere, then we hear some great news. Tony Ford’s best friend "Brett Richard" has just landed on Fair Isle on a plane charter from Blackpool. Wwwhhhhhhhoooopppppppppppppeeeeeeeee we all shout.

The flight from Fair Isle to Sumburgh, pick us all up and then taking us to Fair Isle would take maximum of 20 minutes. But Brett says "No". Perhaps he was worried he would not be home in time for tea!

The weather had been quite foggy on Friday and Saturday . Sunday the fog was gone and this allowed the first charter plane in (Bretts).

That night we all felt that there was a good chance that the clear skies may mean the Citril Finch could decide to move on.

By the way we did eventually go and see the very showy/vocal Marsh Warbler and we all ate a very nice fish and chip meal in Lerwick.

John Bell conveyed some possible good news to us from Hugh Harrop. The Council were Chartering a plane on Monday morning at 7:10am flying empty to Fair Isle, picking up some school children and bringing them back to Sumburgh. There would be enough spaces for us all on a scheduled return flight at 11:45 to Sumburgh. The only problem was, there was no guarantee we could get on the outbound charter.

That night we all stayed in a Bungalow owned by a lady friend of Chris Heard. Her husband and daughter were not home that night and she very kindly made us all Coffee’s/tea and she was even prepared to sleep on the floor, so I could sleep in her bed instead of her. I quickly refused her good nature and said "Don’t be silly, we can sleep together??!!"

Hugh and his friend greeted us at Sumburgh Airport on Monday at 6:45am. Airport staff soon arrived and it was not long before they agreed to take all six of us on the Council Charter Flight. We were charged £56 for a return flight to Fair Isle.

We arrived at Fair Isle at around 7:45am, and as per usual Deryk Shaw was waiting for us in a mini bus. He took us all to the area it was seen yesterday and from there we started searching.

We only had 4 hours to see the bird before we were due to catch the plane back to Sumburgh. Two hours had passed and none of my group had seen the bird, despite Hugh and his friend managing several flight views of the Finch.

Chris was desperate to stop for a coffee in the shop (like the thirsty bugger he often is), but I begged him to carrying on searching.

Then we bumped into an American lady, she said she saw the Citril Finch building a nest further up the road. Chris & I eventually go to investigate and as soon as we do we bump into Peter Harrison (author of "Seabirds an identification guide", published by Helm). He and his entourage have seen the bird briefly in flight heading where we had just been standing talking to the American lady.

30 minutes go by then a couple staying on the Obs saw the finch in a ploughed field for five minutes. We go to investigate but still no sign. Then John Bell informs us that it’s been seen at Barkland again.

On arrival as usual the bird has flown. We then hear that the assistant warden has seen the finch at the ploughed field.

Chris wonders if the assistant warden is relaying the couples sighting or he has also seen it. It is now 11:30, and the plane is due to take off in 15 minutes. Considering the difficulty in getting to Fair Isle and knowing the bird is still here Chris, Tony & I are prepared to miss the plane and stay the night on Fair Isle.

At 11:45 Chris shouts out I’ve got it.

We all look where Chris is pointing, and instantly connect with it sitting on the fence next to the ploughed field.

Everybody is so emotional and lots of group hugs take place. John Bell is desperate to catch the plane back so with a 20 second binocular view he is off and running as fast as he can to the Airport.

We enjoy the finch for 30 minutes or so through the scopes.

I managed to take 68 pictures of the Citril Finch on my new Camera. Now if you think my shots were bad on my old Camera, you will be pleased/sad to know my photo’s are a whole lot worse. I didn’t manage to get even one in focus shot. Not even close to being in focus. Considering the Finch was astationary bird for 30 minutes. What am I doing wrong?? Where is Martin Scott when you need him?

To our surprise John Bell came back and says the plane is delayed because thick fog has descended on Sumburgh Airport and the plane could take off but not guarantee landing back at Sumburgh.

Shortly after getting back to the Airport, a charter plane from York arrives with 5 chequebook birders:- Billy Simpson, John Regan, Malcolm Roxby, Jerry Warne & Mark Sutton.. If only my wife would let me join that exclusive club.

Also at the airport was the finder of the Citril Finch, an American called "Tony Hyndman", he lives on Fair Isle, and owns a B&B on Fair Isle.

We get off Fair Isle about 3:00pm, then drive from the Airport to the port and leave the hire car for collection.

Safely on board the 5:30pm ferry, we sit back and relax. The ferry docks at 7:00am Tuesday morning.

On the way home we saw the Surf Scoter at Blackdog and it was nice to meet Mr 535 BOU/IRBC’s wife at Scots corner. I really would like to have chatted to her longer, but for some reason I had a diarrhoea attack and only just made it to the deposit box in time.

Great trip, it only cost £208 each plus food.