Scilly - October 2019
05/10: The journey on the Scillonian was calm, but there was very little wildlife to see - only Arctic Skua and a few (probably Common) Dolphin.
In the afternoon we had a stroll around St Marys and year-ticked Yellow-browed Warbler. There was a little excitement over a female Teal on Newford duck pond which some observers believe is the North American version (Anas (crecca) carolinensis), which we usually refer to as Green-winged Teal, although Eurasian Teal (Anas (crecca) crecca) is equally green-winged. The females of the two forms are very similar and features for separating them may not be entirely reliable. The most important feature is the pattern of the outermost tertial feather, in which, in Green-winged Teal, the black submarginal stripe narrows to a fine line well back from the feather tip and the narrow pale edge does not widen distally. I am in no doubt that the pale edge does widen distally in this bird and that it is not acceptable as the 2nd British record of female Green-winged Teal
In the afternoon we had a stroll around St Marys and year-ticked Yellow-browed Warbler. There was a little excitement over a female Teal on Newford duck pond which some observers believe is the North American version (Anas (crecca) carolinensis), which we usually refer to as Green-winged Teal, although Eurasian Teal (Anas (crecca) crecca) is equally green-winged. The females of the two forms are very similar and features for separating them may not be entirely reliable. The most important feature is the pattern of the outermost tertial feather, in which, in Green-winged Teal, the black submarginal stripe narrows to a fine line well back from the feather tip and the narrow pale edge does not widen distally. I am in no doubt that the pale edge does widen distally in this bird and that it is not acceptable as the 2nd British record of female Green-winged Teal
06/10: This was a mostly sunny and dry day. Again we stayed on St Mary's. After a very enjoyable walk around the coast we eventually arrived at the Old Town and Lower Moors. There had been a very confiding Spotted Crake here and a very few people had seen a Yellow-billed Cuckoo. We met a few old friends amongst the melee of birders waiting for the cuckoo to appear and walked on to year-tick the crake. The cuckoo had not been pinned down so we returned to tho Old Town cafe for lunch and then walked the Peninis farm trail where we found a Red-backed Shrike that had been seen here during the morning. Late in the afternoon the cuckoo was sighted again and there was some hope that people knew roughly where it was - so we returned to lower moors. After a frustrating glimpse of a few of its feathers as it flew into dense cover from an obscured perch, I and ~30 of the 200 or so other birders present followed a muddy track into the scrub and was fortunate enough to see the whole bird, albeit for only ~5 seconds, before it disappeared again. This is the first time since 2012 that I have had a new British bird on Scilly. Unfortunately, Alison didn't see it. Yellow-billed Cuckoo is a North American vagrant, that turns up maybe one year in two on average, but it usually arrives in such poor condition that it promptly dies - it has been a bit of a bogey-bird for me in that its occurrence on Scilly has never before coincided with me being here.
7/10 The day started well with 2 rare moths in my traps - both of which I had obtained for the first time on Scilly in 2018. My 2018 specimen of Grass Webworm was the 15th British record of this species - in 2019 however there have been a further 15 records, 8 of them on Scilly. The other rarity Golden Twin-spot has occurred ~500 times before.
We spent the day enjoying St Marys