Blue-winged Warbler

A really nasty weather system had gone through on 3 October 2000, so everyone knew there was going to be a good Yank around, but still we were not prepared for this! At 0925 on 4th I got a call from Paul Clack, in the middle of discussing business with my boss, telling me there is a Blue-winged Warbler on Cape Clear! Eeeeek! As this is the worst possible scenario for me in a busy week I try to dismiss it as a wind up, but of course it isn’t. At 0950 all hell breaks loose on the pagers, a plan is hatched to get there today(!), and I manage to talk my long-suffering boss into giving me two days off at no notice at all, quite how I still don’t know. By 1015 I am on the road towards Birmingham airport with Jimbo, where I know Paul Chapman has booked us on a 1415 flight to Dublin with an onward connection to Cork, and there should be a 1730 ferry to Cape from Baltimore if we got there in time. We made it to Birmingham in time, just. We knew one slip with the logistics would mean the plan would fail, so the tension was nerve-tingling, especially while waiting to board both flights. 

We landed at Cork, and were away from the airport by 1600, arriving at Baltimore quay by 1720. The five of us (Paul Chapman, James McGill, Richard Bonser, Nic Hallam, and myself) were joined by six in two cars who had flown from Stansted (including Steve Webb, Adrian Webb, James Hanlon, and Franko), and we are all on the boat by 1730.  The bird had disappeared because of a rain shower, but we heard just before we got on the boat that it was showing again (which was gutting news for the Irish birder who had just come off having dipped, and who couldn’t go back due to other commitments). At 1815, with barely an hour of light left, we were off the boat on Cape and running up the quay past the Obs towards Cotter’s garden.

It seemed to take ages for the bird to show, but in reality it was less than five minutes before I got a look down somebody’s scope at the bird perched motionless at the bottom of a small bush. The mental image I had from memories of the Peterson guide was in fact of Brewster’s Warbler, a hybrid with Golden-winged, so I was not prepared for how yellow it was!  It is an over-used word these days, but this bird really was STUNNING! We watched it until nearly 7pm, when it went to roost in bushes at the top of the garden. A Sparrowhawk went through the top of those bushes, the moon was bright and clear, and we were very glad we had got there in time to see it. 

Rich Bonser and a couple of others even managed to get back off again before dark to be at Kilbaha at dawn to try for a Rose-breasted Grosbeak found there. They dipped, but respect for the attempt. We didn’t need that, so our next move was down the garden and into Cotter’s pub (then in its brief incarnation as the Night Jar – geddit?), where we got down to the serious business of celebrating such a coup, and did so well into the night.

Next morning, Franko and I had a flyover Tree Pipit (a scarce migrant in Ireland) as we left our overnight accommodation. We arrived back at Cotter’s garden, where there was initially no sign of the warbler, and I caught Eric Dempsey giving me daggers (probably unintentionally, but also wondering how we managed to beat him to a first for Ireland). Then the Blue-winged Warbler showed very well and everyone was very happy. I was quite badly hung over and must have looked a right state myself, but then at the Obs I saw the cut of Dennis Weir, the finder, who had been plied with whiskey till the early hours – he looked like a boiled owl, as the Midlands saying goes, but he was still buzzing big time.

Just 11 Brits had set a new record, having successfully twitched Cape Clear from Britain on the first day of a bird. And what a bird! So what if it stayed a week and other British birders saw it over the next few days for a sixth of what we spent – that day was something special.