Thick-billed Warbler, Fair Isle

On the morning of 16 May 2003 I was just about to leave for work when Paul rang, briefly: ‘Thick-billed Warbler, Fair Isle, Jimbo and I are throwing money at it.’ I couldn’t afford to do that, nor could I get the time off at such short notice at the time, so I had to endure the day knowing that they were on the way, and eventually scored that evening. Respect to them for making Fair Isle same day – a rare feat indeed – but yes, it was gutting. So I made plans for the next day in the hope it might stick.

Having rung the usual people in Yorkshire, I naively came away with the impression that I was sorted on a private flight next morning, so drove up there overnight. Turns out I wasn’t sorted at all, but then Billy Simpson had to cry off, so there was a place after all. But also the cost was more than I had been quoted over the phone. ‘Oh well, I’m here now’, I thought.

As the morning wore on, there was no sign of the warbler at the Obs where it had been the day before, so we decided to give up and started drifting away. Then suddenly it was reported again, down the isle at the Meadow Burn. A quick round of phone calls and we were back at the airfield and the twitch was on. Trouble is, the plane available couldn’t land on Fair Isle, so could only get us to Sumburgh. No problem, apparently – Loganair had agreed to put on a charter flight for us. More extra cost, of course, but at least it was an option. So we set off.

But then the weather turned as we approached Shetland, and as we landed at a rather wet Sumburgh, we could see no Loganair plane out on the tarmac. Given the poor forecast for the rest of the day, they had pulled out of offering the charter, and could not be persuaded otherwise. We no longer had any way of getting to Fair Isle that day. Nor was there any further sign of the bird. Nightmare!

And indeed there was no sign next day and we wandered forlornly around Lerwick for a few hours on Sunday morning after being kicked out of the B&B and before flying back to Yorkshire empty-handed.  As we never got to Fair Isle, I couldn’t even count it for my dips list.

But first we (Malcom Roxby, Chris Bell, Richard Stephenson, Tony Shepherd, and myself) had to face being stuck in Lerwick on a rainy Saturday night, with no change of clothes and not much spare money. We got wet finding a cashpoint, found a cheap B&B, grabbed some fish and chips, then headed to the pub. All of the locals were in their Saturday night glad rags, so we, still in birding gear, stuck out like a sore thumb. Any hope was flagging by then anyway, but the barmaid’s T-shirt seemed to sum it all up – spelled out in diamante across her chest was ‘No Chance’.