Western sub- Alpine warbler- Shetland

It could only be Shetland. An Eastern and a Western Sub-Alpine warblers within 20 miles of each other

Having seen the Eastern up at Clickimin on Tuesday, this Western was a harder bird to see. I met a couple of birders coming back from an hour looking without it appearing. 

I went up to the dam, where it had been seen very early on Saturday morning. After a look round and not finding it i left one other birder to check out the burn close to the mill at Quendale. About 1/2 way down it suddenly jumped up onto a wire and then quickly flew further down the burn to another couple of birders but then it turned round and landed and 10 m away

I managed a few photos before it flew down deep into vegetation. I was shooting at ISO10,000 as it was an overcast day

It flew back to the dam and appeared on wires a few times before flying across to land on a wall

It came down to feed on the floor before a couple of Twite spooked it and it flew back down towards the mill lost to view

This bird should really have been down either in Southern France, Spain or Northern Italy

The Western arrived 12 May and the Eastern 13 May and both are still present today

 

Eastern Subalpine Warbler- Shetland

This Eastern Subalpine warbler has now been in the same spot for the past 4 days. This is a very rare warbler which should have been somewhere like southern Italy or Turkey, so way off course.

It showed to three of us, Laurence Smith and Jim Nicolson after about 10 mins searching, John Coutts had just left after an earlier search. 

I saw it fly in from a garden to the south end of Clickimin path and it settle in dep vegetation at first

eventually it continue to feed close to the front but was very quick moving.

It was good to hear this bird singing even though it was fairly windy

This is the third species of Subalpine warbler i have seen in Shetland. A western is even at Quendale at the same time as this eastern. I also saw a Moltoni's up in Unst in June on the 1990's, this bird was also singing and collecting nest material/