A long time before the next one?

As I suspected, my last blog was not the end of the story. Shetland this year was somewhat different, mainly in terms of numbers of birds, but also birders. Having left the queue for the Unst ferry to retrace my journey and continue to Mainland for the Siberian Thrush, I wasn't about to leave Yell again without a good reason. However, I always spend a couple of days on Mainland before taking the ferry home, and, as the thrush was now showing regularly in the garden, I went back and finally managed to get a photo, just like I had returning to a White's Thrush a few years ago.

Back home, I have been compiling a new web page attempting to illustrate every British species, and got to Brunnich's Guillemot. For those that have been around a while, this was another of those birds that was always just out of reach for various reasons, and has probably reverted to the same status now. Its similarity to Common Guillemot means that many birds must be overlooked, indeed the first records have all become "not proven" on review, the first accepted record being of a bird found dead in 1908. The next accepted record was 1960, again a bird found dead. A live bird was found on the Farnes, for one day, but in 1977 news took far longer to get around, and by 1980 there had been a further six birds found dead. So when I started birding it was an almost mythical species, and no-one really expected ever to see one in Britain.

The pattern continued until 1987, by which time a further thirteen birds had been accepted, all dead, except for a Christmas Eve bird in 1986 in Ireland. which could have been alive, dead or a figment of a drunken imagination! (If you were the finder, please accept my apologies, there seem to be no recorded details). Then, in February, a live bird was found in Hamnavoe, Shetland, swimming around the inlet. Only hardcore twitchers would attempt to see it, but having been birding a few years I had got to  know a few of those, so found myself in a car with Mel, Steve W. and Mammoth. Shetland in those days meant an overnight ferry and hiring a car in Lerwick, unfortunately the cheapest car was a Ford Fiesta, and three of the four of us were quite big. This became five at some point when we picked up Little Richard, and we had to get out on some unmade tracks or the car got stuck on the three-ply! (rallying term for a strip of vegetation growing in the centre of a rarely used track).

The bird wasn't visible when we 'scoped the voe, so Steve approached a local boatman and an impromptu charter was arranged. Of course, due to insurance and health and safety regulations in those days, none of us joined the boat. If you believe that you'll believe anything, but about twenty unnamed birders took to the sea to seek out the Guillemot. No luck, but then we were hailed by another vessel. No, it wasn't the Coastguard, it was Dennis Coutts, and in his hands he held a Brunnich's Guillemot! Another record consigned to the "dead file", or was it?. 

You could see birders minds working- "I can't tick a dead bird, but...." The bird pooped in his hands, was it brain dead?" " Does it have to be brain dead to tick it or just dead?" And worse- "if Ron ticks it then I will as well".  Dennis said, "I don't think it's the same bird" and explained that the extent of white on the throat was different. We reluctantly had to concede that the bird he held had never been seen alive in Shetland waters, so the search was abandoned as the boat owner wanted some lunch. He did offer another trip later, but it was decided that the bird had probably gone. Brunnich's was to remain an untwitchable myth.

Four of us decided to make the most of our day and went to look for a King Eider that was known to be on Shetland, but after a couple of miles someone flagged us down. I don't know how he knew, no pagers or mobiles in those days, but he informed us the guillemot was back! My next memory is of an overladen Ford Fiesta overtaking a lorry on the wrong side of the road whilst hurtling downhill at a speed which would have attracted a ban nowadays. Having been a rally driver for a number of years this didn't bother me, and we were soon setting up scopes on a hill overlooking the voe. A young lady, a minority group in those days, but probably a local, attempted to give directions. Not easy on open water with few reference points. Birder One (identity witheld-it wasn't me) could contain himself no longer, he picked up the girl, lifted her bodily to one side, and looked through her 'scope. Different times, as they say, we all found it highly amusing, including the girl.  Needless to say, we all saw the bird before long, and became members of a somewhat elite group who had seen a live Brunnich's Guillemot in the UK. For the rest, the species reverted to its former status of being very difficult to catch up with. We had even found time to make observations of its diving behaviour which could be used to differentiate it from Guillemot, although I've never seen it in a field guide.

The next few years didn't help. One took up residence in a Common Guillemot colony at Sumburgh Head in 1989, a couple of my twitching friends went to see it, but it was rarely seen as most of the ledges it settled on were out of sight. Another was a month on St Kilda, and in 1995 a bird was taken into care on Shetland, released after nearly a month, showed the following day and........... Of course, by the mid 90's Brunnich's Guillemot was all but forgotten, since the likes of Ancient Murrelet, Pallas's Sandgrouse and Golden-winged Warbler had stolen the show for many twitchers. Birds continued to turn up, either dead, one-day birds and/or remote locations on islands, but newer birders had much else to worry about. Eventually it had to happen- in 2013 a bird spent a fortnight in Portland Harbour, and despite it being over Xmas and New Year, everybody that wanted to saw it. And I got a photograph!

The last record was in 2021 in Norfolk. It was a one day bird, tracked along the coast, and then.......died.