Savannah Sparrow, Fair Isle

Just the third-ever Savannah Sparrow in Britain was found on Fair Isle on 15 October 2003. As with quite a few megas over the years, I was on Portland when the news broke, so I was immediately treated to reminiscences of the famous 1982 bird there, the first British record. I headed up to Yorkshire that night, thinking (naively) that I had sorted myself a place on a private flight the next day. But no. So I had to hang around Yorkshire that day in the hope of being sorted for the next day instead – the likes of Great Grey Shrike and Pallas’s Warbler at Filey eased the frustration a little.

The next morning I got lucky – it turned out that one person (Rich Bonser, no less) had had to drop out, so I took his place, alongside Andy Holden, Vicki Turner, Ross Newnham, and Tony Shepherd. The sparrow was there, so we were on! After an enjoyable and uneventful flight, we landed on Fair Isle, and the Obs minibus arrived to pick us up. Assistant warden Alan Bull, at the wheel, calmly told us ‘I’ve just found a Siberian Rubythroat. Which would you like to see first?’

The news stunned us into silence, for a few seconds at least. Andy had been sitting in the airfield shelter hut and missed out on the original conversation with Alan, and looked utterly shocked when I told him. His reaction was to nervously pace rapidly up and down over only a couple of metres – classic displacement activity and absolutely comical to watch! We all piled quickly on the bus, and as I was the only one of the crew who didn’t need Rubythroat, I got heavily outvoted. I could see the tension and excitement in the others had just gone up several notches. I, on the other hand, was thinking how unlucky it was to jam in on a mega-Sibe on Fair Isle and not need it!

Siberian Rubythroat (Photo: Lee Gregory)

Thankfully it did not take long to see the Rubythroat once we arrived at the most southerly croft on the island, Outra. A first-winter female, so not the best example of the species, but still a stunningly rare bird, and showing well on and off by the road. It was appreciated hugely by not only our crew and all the birders staying on the isle, but also a boatload of birders who had left Wick many hours previously for the sparrow and got the news about the Rubythroat as they were approaching Fair Isle. Oh, to have seen their faces when they found out! They had to do a sweaty route march down the isle, but it was so worth it.

Savannah Sparrow (Photo: Lee Gregory)

Happily for me, it was a very short walk to The Haa from there, so I was soon watching my target, the Savannah Sparrow, crunching seed merrily under the croft’s feeders alongside the fattest Greenfinch I have ever seen, which apparently just ate all day and didn’t leave. I’m surprised it could fly.

Lots of people around me were having an unexpected two-tick day: buy one, get one free! I might actually have been the only one there who wasn't, but I wasn’t complaining.

It was the right way round to do it, too, it turned out, as the Rubythroat had got more mobile and difficult and was last seen while we were in the area moving rapidly between Taft and the Chapel.

With time to spare, our crew birded our way slowly up through the crofts, building up a very nice little back-up list including a Waxwing, a Bluethroat, and a couple of Northern Bullfinches that were giving the ‘toy-trumpet’ call betraying a Russian rather than Scandinavian origin. Then it was back to the airstrip for our flight south, all very happy.