Cretzschmar’s Bunting, North Ron

In the evening of 18 September 2008 an American Redstart was reported from the last garden on Mizen Head in Cork. It had been 25 years at that point since the last twitchable one, so there were quite a few birders at Stansted next morning waiting for the early flight to Cork. (Little did we know then that flying to Ireland was to become a recurring theme that autumn.) But despite all our searching, the redstart was not seen again. Oh, well – back to Cork airport late afternoon to head for home. Then mega alert goes – Cretzschmar’s Bunting on North Ronaldsay! Everyone there needed it. ‘North Ron’, as it is affectionately known, is the most northerly and remote of the Orkney islands – next stop Fair Isle – we could hardly have been further away if we tried! (Not strictly true, though, as when the previous one broke, also in Orkney (on Stronsay) in May 1998, Paul and I, along with a few other keen listers, were on St Agnes on Scilly, dipping a Pallid Swift, so we were actually closer this time – just not by much.)

A range of hasty plans were hatched. A few, including Paul, decided to scrub their return flights in favour of fresh flights to get them all the way there. I couldn’t afford to do that, so flew back to Stansted and teamed up with Adam Wilson and Bob Watts from London for the long, long overnight drive to Wick. A little matter of 11 hours later we arrived at the small airport at Wick, knowing the bird was still present, and that’s when things started to get messy. We had a pilot lined up to do shuttle runs, taking a number of crews on to North Ron in pre-arranged order. One of the later crews had arrived early, jumped their place in the queue, and taken our slot. Then, after taking them, the pilot got an attack of the jitters (there were rumours of some potentially awkward questions being asked) and decided he would not fly any more that day. I spoke to him on the phone and tried talking him round, but he was having none of it. Not the news I wanted to have to relay to the waiting birders in the terminal but it had to be done – it left us with a major problem and not much time to decide what to do.

Thanks to spectacular driving by Adam we managed to make the ferry from Gills Bay to St Margaret’s Hope on South Ronaldsay – just! OK, that will get us to Kirkwall, but how do we get to North Ron? We phoned from the ferry and managed to book the single place left on the last scheduled flight of the day. But which of us gets to go? We flipped for it and Bob won. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to us, Dan Pointon’s crew had decided they couldn’t make the ferry and headed back to Wick airport, where they got to speak to the pilot in person – he caved and flew them on.

There were several other birders at Kirkwall airport, and as the last flight was being called, one of the airport staff announced that as there were two children on the flight, there was enough of the weight limit left to add one more passenger. Garry Bagnell was nearest and got his hand up first, so got the spot – good move, fair play. The rest of us had no options left, it seemed, to get there that day and more discussion ensued. I turned away from this to see Adam by the entrance door, quietly beckoning me over. He’d managed to find another pilot who was prepared to fly us over to North Ron! We were saved from feeling any guilt about not letting on to others about this when we found that the pilot had brought his wife along for the ride, so there were no spare seats anyway.

So we managed to get on, but it was so late in the day that we had no realistic chance of seeing the bird. We did get down to Songar croft for a quick look, but soon decided that it would be better for us and for others still on the way to leave it to the next morning and hope the bird stuck. Back at the Obs, where we were staying for the night, Franko did not help by teasing us that the bird was feeding well and wing-stretching as if it was planning to go. We really didn’t need that kind of extra stress – the evening went well, including an excellent meal, good chat, and a few beers, but all the while Adam and I were acutely aware that we were the only birders there who hadn’t seen the Cretzschmar’s. And plenty of others had been and gone, bird safely UTB.

Thankfully it did indeed stick one more day, and we had good views at Songar the next morning. A world tick for me, it was everything I could have hoped for, a cracking bird. While we were watching it, Johnny Allan (he of the trademark victory cigar after a tick) took a phone call, and promptly started swearing the air blue. What now? Another mega? Where did we need to be next? Turned out it was just that a Great White Egret had turned up at his beloved Beddington, a patch first no less. The rest of us could relax while Johnny continued to do his pieces.

Not that we could relax too much – we had our own worries. It was Sunday, each of us had to be back at work the next morning, a very long way from where we currently were, and there was only one ferry off Orkney we could catch that would allow that. If we missed it we were stuffed. We needed to get off North Ron on the first scheduled flight, but it was booked up – ulp! We got lucky: after we explained the situation, a couple of locals very kindly stepped off the plane to catch the next one and allow Adam and I to join Bob.

Once we were back at Kirkwall, the pressure was off a little – we could even afford to stop and see the stunning summer-plumaged White-billed Diver off the causeway between Burray and South Ron. What a bird! Once the ferry docked back at Gills Bay, the rest of the journey was simply time, taking turns to drive then sleep, drive then sleep. I think I even managed a few hours sleep at home before going into work, shattered but very happy.