Chestnut-eared Bunting, Fair Isle

When news of this bird broke on 16 October 2004, no-one really seemed to know what to do with it. The pager services didn’t mega it: the conventional wisdom at the time (now completely shattered as a concept) was that no bird that only bred east of Lake Baikal could ever turn up here as a genuine vagrant. With no previous Western Pal records, it did not feature in any list of potential vagrants: indeed, like many British birders who hadn’t birded in the Far East, I’d never even heard of it! It just wasn’t on anybody’s radar. Even the Fair Isle Obs team, well-versed of course in eastern vagrants, didn’t know what it was at first, and it spent most of the 15th as a funny-looking Little Bunting, before features were seen that really didn’t match, and they spent the evening poring over books before they found the right identification.

So nobody jumped at first – the effort and cost of getting to Fair Isle for a seemingly unlikely vagrant was a major deterrent factor, along with having to take time off work to twitch it in the week. Much discussion went on for a day or so, while the bird (thankfully) continued to reside in its chosen oat crop at Skadan at the south end of the island.

Finally the dam broke and various crews twitched it successfully on the 18th. A message appeared on the Birdnet pager that evening offering places on a private flight going on news the next day from Yorkshire. I phoned Paul Flint and confirmed that a space was still available, then spent the next hour umming and aahing. When I phone Flinty back and the space was still free, I decided to bite the bullet.

Dawn on the 19th found me in Yorkshire with the rest of the crew of five (Flinty, Matt Mulvey, myself, and I forget who else, sorry). The bird was there, so off we set. Then we got news of the likely wind speed and direction on arrival: both Sumburgh and Kirkwall were giving readings that indicated 20-knot crosswinds – we couldn’t land on Fair Isle in those! Matt was all for turning round, and the pilot was understandably anxious, so we circled over Montrose Basin for a few minutes, but I argued (successfully) that we should at least go and see what the conditions were actually like – it would, of course, be the pilot’s call as to whether we even attempted a landing.

With trepidation we arrived over Fair Isle, and luck was with us – the crosswinds were nowhere near as bad there as they were being recorded either side of us. Even so, it was tricky, and the pilot tried and failed on one approach before reversing the approach and coming in from the other end. A bouncy landing, but we got down OK. A private flight from Blackpool was waiting to see how we did before attempting a landing, but they got down too.

Once there, getting to the bird and seeing it was a relative doddle, though it was sticking to the crop in the windy conditions, so getting a good view was a bit more of a challenge. Gradually, though, we saw the chestnut ear coverts, and the gorget of streaks on the breast and the lovely orange band below them (quite Bluethroat-like in a way, I thought). A lovely little bird, and I duly added to the proferred ‘tick tin’ (though Matt, still doubtful of ever ticking the bird, only chucked in a few coppers – I suspect it was him that was noted as only contributing 9p in the Birding World write-up).

We had time now to bird a little, and a Waxwing, an actual Bluethroat, and a Northern Bullfinch made for a nice little back-up cast before a thankfully uneventful flight back to Yorkshire.

The last of the big boys (including Paul C) connected on 20th, its last day. Another one on Shetland in 2012 offered another chance, but a mainland one would be vey popular indeed.