Cape May Warbler

Shockwaves abounded on 23 October 2013 when Mike Pennington found Britain’s second Cape May Warbler at Baltasound on Unst. The only previous record was also in Scotland, a one-day singing adult male at Paisley Glen near Glasgow on 17 June 1977 – it was feared that it might be the one of the dreaded one-and-onlys that litter the rarity record books, a permanent gap on nearly everyone’s lists, but now at last here was another chance at a near-mythical bird.

True to what had become a depressingly frequent pattern around that time, I couldn’t go for this bird immediately, and had to wait until the next day. No boss to answer to but myself, but meeting deadlines means future work too, so needs must. I had a one-way flight left over from unsuccessful twitching exploits earlier in the year, so quickly shifted it to the early Aberdeen–Sumburgh flight for the 25th, and teamed up with Ash Howe, who had also had to delay a day because of work. Ash was great company and did most of the driving up to Aberdeen.

His driving once on Shetland in particular was spectacular, and we just managed to get on a Yell ferry I didn’t think we had an earthly of making. It was a bit of a wait at Gutcher for the ferry to Unst, though, and as it appeared, Ash tried to start the hire car. Completely dead! Not even a flicker to give us hope it might start. With the ferry already docking, there was no time left to try anything else, so we just pushed the car to one side and jumped on as foot passengers. Now we needed a lift to the site, and luckily we found some other birders on the ferry who came to our rescue and got us there.

A few of the previous day’s twitchers had stayed on Unst overnight and were still there, including Paul C, and he got us on to the bird within a minute or so of arriving at the garden of the derelict house it favoured. Sumptuous views followed – a first-winter female, it wasn’t the most brightly coloured of American warblers (or even of Cape Mays), but smart and pretty in a subtle way, and we stayed quite a while enjoying the views.

Then there was the issue of getting back down south. Our helpers from earlier had already gone, but Russ Haywood offered us a lift all the way back to Lerwick. Top man! We checked on the hire car when we got back to Gutcher, but it was still dead, so Russ really saved our bacon.

Back in Lerwick, we hit the Star car hire office and explained what happened. When I asked, ‘So what are you going to charge us then?’, the lady behind the desk started talking about recovery fees and the cost of a new battery!  I had already discovered I had lost the photocard part of my driving licence at the site, with a solo Australian trip in just 3 weeks, so I was in no mood for that kind of crap. I explained, calmly but firmly, that I was expecting a discount. She made the mistake of admitting that they had had problems with that particular car before – it had an odd ignition system which you had to turn off in a particular, unusual sequence or it drained the battery instantly. Telling us that bit would have been handy!

It all got sorted out in the end and we legged it to the ferry terminal to get the boat back to Aberdeen. It was a sick bucket job back as far as Kirkwall, but fine after that and we got some sleep at last before the long drive home with another megatick in the bag.