Although St Mary's is seen as the main island in the Scillies, the most populated and cultivated, Tresco runs that island a close second. The island is famous for its garden, which being on a birdwatching holiday I didn't visit, but also for its ability to attract rare birds. Another avian draw is the population of GOLDEN PHASANTS, which live in its conifer plantations, the last wild birds left in the UK.
Our first full day on the Scillies, led us to our first off island excursion, specifically to see the SWAINSON'S THRUSH that had been hanging round for a couple of days. A small bird, it looks like a song thrush, and this little bird is quite a mega - a very rare bird to the UK, with maybe one record a year for the entire country. It originates from America, so what its doing on the Scillies is anyone's guess, maybe blown here, or got lost, but sadly will end up dying here. Its the sort of bird that attracts twitches, but has been in the area for a couple of days already, so people are already blasé.
Expecting something more, the ferry boat was quite a surprise, a little passenger boat, rammed full of people who were mainly twitchers. The boat journey was swift, maybe fifteen minutes, the islands are close in together and the passage was fairly calm. The boat landed at a desolate pier, and it was a strange walk along a tarmac track through rough grassland, kind of following the other boat passengers. Looking down on a bay, a MEDITERRANEAN GULL was of interest. The desolate landscape softened gradually until signs of civilisation appeared with an airfield. In a close by field, cropped short, there was a goody bag of birds. In among a large flock of MEADOW PIPITS, was a WHINCHAT and a WHEATEAR, the whinchat particularly good as its my latest ever record, the first for October. The large amounts of rough grassland on Tresco meant that STONECHATS were common, as they were over the entire islands, one of the few birds to be doing well at the moment.
The first signs of habitation was the Abbey Gardens, but as we weren't going in we took a detour, round it, passed Abbey pool, a small lake, where two BLACK TAILED GODWITS were a good sighting for the islands. Perhaps the main habitat feature of Tresco is the Great Pool, a large lake that almost cuts the island in half, the main body of water on the entire set of islands. It is a large lake, reed fringed and looked over by two hides. On the water there was a small flock of GADWALL and COOT with TEAL on the fringes. With the drought we've been having, some mud had become exposed,, where a CURLEW SANDPIPER was a good find, while a WATER RAIL was also about, attracted out from the reeds, running down the side of the lake, while finally two BLACK TAILED GODWITS were here, different to the ones on Abbey Pool.
With no room in the tiny hide overlooking Great Pool, some of the party had split off. My party was in Old Grimsby, when the call came out that the SWAINSON'S THRUSH that had been in the area, but had been lost, had been refound. The news got out to other birders in the area, and there was a mass rush uphill to where the bird had been found. It wasn't there immediately, but had been seen in a palm tree, in a small quarry, before flying off into some bracken, where it had disappeared.
There was a hush as around thrity people waited beneath a palm tree waiting to get a sight of an elusive rare thrush. Cameras and binocluars were raised at every brief flicker of wind, every birder anticipating the bird showing itself. Doubts were rampant as to whether the bird was still about, or if it had gone to ground in the surrounding dense scrub. Some people walked up the road, but most waited. And then there was a movement, a bird flew into the palm tree, binoculars and cameras were raised, and lo! the bird appeared for a brief time, then moved out of view, before appearing again, for maybe thirty seconds, but good views were got. And that's all that mattered.
It wasn't a looker, the same plumage as a song thrush, except it had no striping on the breast, and it was small, the size of a robin. And that was it, but that was all that mattered, a tick, a sighting. Like a football match you don't necessarily go for the score, but to enjoy the atmosphere, which good twitches always supply, no matter the result. Twitches are always a good event, people are always friendly, and that is often what its all about. However this bird was a lifer, a bird I have never seen before, a bird I can tick off my list.
After the twitch a group of us went to the south of the island to the large alien conifer woodlands, to look for one special bird of Tresco, the GOLDEN PHEASANT. This bird is a native of the Far East, but some birds were introduced to this country, for some reason, and self sustaining colonies were established, with the result it became accepted as part of the British bird list, which means it was officially classed as wild. However over the years most of these populations died off, with the result that Tresco is the last place in the country in which they survive, the last place where you can add them to your list.
We only found the one bird, a stunning male, mostly red with a golden crown, a very gaudy bird that seemed so out of place in the British countryside, over plumaged like a mandarin duck. The bird was very comfortable with us and allowed us to get very close, within a couple of metres. This strange bird was a lifer, one I have never seen before. There was a population in Thetford Forest but they died out around the millennium. On the way back, we passed they Abbey Gardens where a RED SQUIRREL ran across the road in front of us. A small population of this rare mammal has been introduced to Tresco to provide a viable population in the south of England where it is now extinct. After that it was a walk to New Grimsby, to take the ferry boat back to St Mary's, after a very satisfying day.
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