Shetland 22 Day 2.

 Sensible title. 

Tuesday.

First light. Saw Hornemanns Arctic yesterday also. Forgot to tell you all (4 people) that. Suppression. After the Wuthering Heights of yesterday, we set off to…wait for it….Unst as the unashamed Leeds fan that is Joel needed to see the Ortolan which had been frequenting the most northerly populated isle in the British Isles. With Great Expectations we birded Yell for a while instead of going straight to the top of the world which was lucky as we were “only” one ferry from the mainland as news of a Locustella sp came through. I was driving as I was surprisingly sober at the point, a thing I was determined to make up for later in the day. 

We debated. It could just be a Gropper. Do we carry on in the hope of the Ortolan then this Locustella? Catch 22.  Then news came through that it was a Lancey! Holy shit sauce. Lancey is short for Lanceolated Warbler. And I’ve just realised the irony of being called Monica. That’s crazy that. Not that I’m called Monica of course. I presume the Lancey wasn’t called Monica. Or perhaps it was/is? And Neneh Cherry. What’s wrong with Turin? It looks like quite a nice place to me. 

My “jokes” are getting worse. I’ll delete that. No, I’ll leave it in. Make your own mind up. Where is this going?

So, a Lancey no less! In a tiny Hamlet on Shetland! We went straight there and looked right at it. Right at it. After the crowd had flushed it deliberately several times as it’s all about the views and the tick in your bird jotter pad and definitely not about the welfare of the bird that has just flown 2000 miles off course (of course?). At one stage it literally nearly flew into me trying to escape the marauding hordes trying to kick it in its head. Several flights later when I’m sure it just wanted to peacefully rest and feed rather than be kicked in the heed, it found a new field Far From the Madding Crowd. It showed quite amazingly, down to a few feet. Incredible bird. No sign of it the next day almost certainly down to the constant flushing of the hordes of bloodthirsty twitchers not letting it rest and probably ending in The Big Sleep. Still, a tick in my bird jotter pad so fuck it that’s all that matters. 

We birded like madmen, thrashing ditches, bashing bushes and erm, twatting trees but found ABSOLUTELY FUCK ALL. And when I say Fuck All, I mean Fuck All. Well, Jack Snipes and Yellow Brows and things like that I suppose.  I got onto 3 Redpoll on Yell one I thought looked good for Arctic on fleeting views but they simply flew off about 18 miles away in a huff. We’d tried to pin them down but Much Ado About Nothing. Why were those Redpolls so grumpy? Who knows what kind of day they were having so fair enough. Upto them. 

Shetland is quite, nay, very sparse when it comes to recreational drugs with no passers-by having any about their person, strangely. I suppose if a total stranger dressed in wellington boots and a Stone Island hat (only these items) approaches you in the street and asks for recreational drugs, you probably would say you don’t have any and make your way onwards, probably purchasing a lasagne pie as all Shetlanders eat lasagne pies. Or, if you’d lied to that stranger and you DID hold recreational drugs about your person, you wouldn’t need a lasagne pie! Hurrah! 

We celebrated our joint tick fest with brandy and several apple based drinks. If only the barmaids were called Jane Eyre or King Lear. I believe I might have eaten something that evening too. What is the world coming to? 

Join us in only 8 weeks time for the next up-to-the-minute instalment of our Shetland trip report. I’m almost certain it may be entitled “Day 3”. 

(Huckleberry) Fin.

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