Scilly - 13.10.17

Friday the 13th today so it was bound to be an unlucky last day in the field! How wrong was I?!

A pager message the previous evening was saying that a probable Orphean Warbler sp had been seen on St.Agnes but was elusive. The early boat over there left at 8.45 but we chose to not to go. Instead we went up Penninis for a wander. A dozen Snipe flying over was the birding highlight and a brief Minke Whale was the highlight on the sea! We headed down towards Old Town and had a spot of brunch. The 10.15 boat came and went and a bit later news filtered through that the Orphean Warbler had been re-found. With this news we walked towards the quay to get in the queue for the 12.15 boat but as thee were so many birders waiting they organised it to leave early. I had texted Cliff Smith who had been on the early boat to find out some news and he'd replied he'd seen it 4-5 times but briefly each time. It sounded promising!

We arrived on site and the narrow lane very quickly became filed with around 200 birders! Cliff came over to me to say that one birder had had very good views of it when it was re-found and that it had dark chevrons on the undertail which surely meant it would be an Eastern race bird and a 1st for Britain! After over an hour of waiting and only having Blackcaps to keep us on our toes it suddenly appeared out of nowhere flew over our heads and back again and vanished into the large hedges. Another 20 minutes or so passed before it showed again, this time zooming into a Tamarisk in the corner of the field but showing off its back,rump and tail very nicely including the white outer-tail feathers. Another wait ensued before I picked it up in flight only for it to vanish again! Will Scott then radioed over the CB that he had it in a hedge behind the fields we were looking at so we all had a mad rush round towards the church to try and get a viewing point through the gap in the tack side hedge. I walked up from the main group and joined Brendon at a small gap where after a nervous wait I picked it up showing the brown colouring on the head etc but it again quickly disappeared. With this most people were happy with their views and headed back to get the boat but not before a celebratory pint in the Turks Head!

As I type this 2 weeks later things have changed dramatically with regards to this bird. Photos a couple of days after our viewings showed a spread tail shot and it was believed to fit the Western race. But then more photos emerged especially 1 from Adrian Webb that showed the dark undertail chevrons mentioned on the first morning. After a bit of digging from Bob Flood and Ashley Fisher and an email exchange with Lars Svennson it was then confirmed as an EASTERN ORPHEAN WARBLER and with it a 1st for Britain! What a finish to our trip to Scilly!