14th October. Irritating Thrush

Today's forecast was for yet more wind and rain, however we awoke to very light wind and clag. Keen to get out for the final push I headed the crop field behind Sunnydell. It was obvious that an arrival of thrushes had occurred with at least sixty Redwings poking their heads through the turnips. A couple of Chiffchaffs flycatched and a couple of buntings alighted on some dead doc, one of which was a Little Bunting - surely the same bird that I thrown away earlier in the week. It stayed on the doc for several minutes until flying off over Sunnydell. Several further laps of the field proved worthwhile with Redstart, Yellow-browed and Jack Snipe.


With a six hour power cut, retreating to Sunnydell seamed futile so we decided on a final thrash around Sumburgh. The crop held the usual Bluethroat but at the head newly arrived thrushes were abounding. Walking along the roses flushed a dozen or so Redwings but I noticed Rob peering into the dark depths of the roses. Still peering he announced that he was pretty certain that he had a Black-throated Thrush! After a few seconds of panic Andy and I got a glimpse of what certainly looked like a winter male Black- throat showing an obvious gorget of throat/upper breast streaks. Sadly this was all we did see of it as a thrush came out of the back of the roses and flew straight towards the fog horn. We assumed that this was our bird and dashed off up towards the fog horn. At this point the fog closed in and with failing visibility we had lost the bird. We spent a while looking for the bire but unfortunately had to leave as both Andy and I had a plane to catch. We really hadn't seen it very well and unless somebody else manages to relocate it we will never be able to complete a frank and honest description and will have to put it to the back of our minds forever.