Blackburnian Warbler on Skellig Michael

Blackburnian Warbler, Skellig Micheal (Brian Power).

 Famed as Historic World Heritage Site, owing to ancient monastic structures and stairways, and more recently in a galaxy far, far away, Skellig Michael is an under-birded part of the Kerry Kingdom. Getting to the island is tricky, tourist access to the island is tightly controlled and limited to a number of licensed boats allowing 180 people a day, and that is of course only when the weather and Atlantic allows. That aside, when on “The Rock”, with time to spare birding can be quite difficult. Access ways on the island are limited to the main tourist route to the monastery via the South Steps and Christ saddle along with the Lighthouse Road, the latter stages of which are off limits to the general public. Given the island’s peaked shape this leaves large sections of inaccessible terrain. The site is also an SPA which is designated and famous for its seabird colonies, the SPA also includes Little Skellig.

Working on islands has become a thing for me in recent years, with my ecological work on Skellig centring on conducting productivity monitoring of the sites sea birds and biodiversity recording amongst other tasks.

Skellig Micheal in the foreground, Little Skellig in the middle distance, and the Kerry mainland in the far distance (Michael O'Clery).

The 2023 season brought about my third summer on Skellig which has allowed me greater access to the island than most naturalists could dream. Having first visited the island as a tourist in summer 2005, a second visit to the enigmatic rock followed just days after, this was followed by return visit in 2014. In between this time-frame Skellig became the “one place to go” in any of my travel conversations when abroad. During this time I never envisaged the possibilities of working in such a place. During my first two seasons on Skellig things weren’t “normal”, even by island life standards, with day to day events being impacted by the covid pandemic and avian influenza making westerlies and American passerines low down on the agenda. In fact, the only thought of America during the 2022 season was wondering where the Icterine Warbler last seen flying west disappeared to. (A week or so later, North America had its first Icterine Warbler, who knows?)

With less talk of Covid and no obvious signs of bird 'flu in the colony, 2023 looked to be shaping up well. Prior to the mid-September prediction of westerlies, a number of interesting migrants had appeared, with Osprey, Melodious Warbler, Reed Warbler, Turtle Dove, Nightingale, Whinchat and the seemingly annual Pied Flycatchers turning up for the highlight reel. Seabird activity too was throwing some interesting records with near daily occurrences of Cory’s Shearwater from mid-June to end of season as well as the mega 20 seconds of Black-browed albatross madness.

Onto the predicted westerlies…

Mid-September hit with a prediction of westerlies and American arrivals of the avian kind. Trans-Atlantic storms usually equate to no island access, often leaving workers stuck on or off the island for prolonged periods. With this in mind, amidst Shearwater fledging season and end of season works, we departed for the rock on a Sunday instead of the usual Monday morning. Tuesday the 19^th saw multiple messages prompting me to brush up on some American potential and I promptly went about memorising some of the warblers that could turn up.

The madness set in on the morning of September 20^th with me setting off on my productivity monitoring of Manx Shearwater and European Storm Petrel. The day started off as most September mornings for me on Skellig, with an early ascent to the monastery complex on the north peak of the island where the majority of my remaining monitoring plots lie. These nests are located in both tourist and non-tourist areas of the island so the usual routine is to get these completed before tourist boats arrive on the island, however the high winds and Atlantic storms responsible for potential vagrancy also equate to no tourists, allowing me to walk and work at a more leisurely pace. The morning was quiet until I was greeted at the monastery by a not so local Pastor. Though surprisingly this bird, in the form of a juvenile Rosy Starling, was from the east, not the west. What was going on, I thought?

Juvenile Rose-coloured Starling, Skellig Micheal (Brian Power).

Bar a few of the regular Rock Pipits, a lone Wheatear and a distant chirp of a Lapland bunting, all was quiet. Roughly an hour later I had one nest left to check on the upper slopes. This Manx chick was now at a fledgable state with no down visible. With that I moved off the Campion soil to some solid ground and took a break, debating whether to check the top again or drop my monitoring kit back to the hut and continue back down toward Christ’s Saddle. I decided on the former and two steps later the adrenaline was flowing...

Lapland Bunting, Skellig Micheal (Brian Power).

 Given the general lack of passerine diversity on the island, when a flash of yellow, dark wings with and white wing bars zips by, you know you are in for something good. The only question after “where did it land” was “which one”. The imagery I had looked at the previous day left me thinking of a couple of options but surprisingly focused on one, Blackburnian Warbler. A bit of scramble through the bag, quick check of the camera settings and then frantic eye movement looking for the bird followed. Vegetation, other than Campion, on the north peak is limited and within a few seconds the bird reappeared in some Ragwort giving reasonable though partially obscured views. It then dropped out of sight again and I was left wondering did I get enough detail. 

At this point it’s worth noting that I did not know Blackburnian Warbler was not on the Irish List.

Blackburnian Warbler, Skellig Micheal (Brian Power).

Blackburnian Warbler, Skellig Micheal (Brian Power).

Seconds later the bird casually walked across some open ground giving some fantastic views and catching flies until a Rock Pipit decided to be territorial, with that the bird flew high and shot off south. Most of the scarce migrants encountered this year have been 15-30 second views and gone, this encounter lasted a little over a minute. Chuffed I sat down and did some photo checking, some sharp images and plenty of detail. Everything seemed to point clearly to Blackburnian and with that I rattled off a couple of back of the camera photos to Niall and Tom for confirmation. A quick check of Irishbirding.com showed no previous records, leaving an anxious wait for ID verification, fortunately Tom was instantaneous with the reply and confirmation from Niall also soon followed. With that I put the news out, “Blackburnian Warbler, briefly on Skellig Michael just now, flew off high and south”.

The unfortunate thing about finding anything in such remote places means that it is unlikely anyone else will get to see it, and such was the case here with swell and wind bringing an early close to the island.

After I returned to my cabin, having a very delayed breakfast and completing some other chores, I decided to return to the monastery to see if I could re-find the bird or indeed happen on anything else that might be lurking. Having reached Christ’s Saddle I happened on the bird again, mid-afternoon, and watched it hunt flies before flying into the monastery complex where it perched on one of the iconic beehives, Luke’s one for you Star Wars fans, and then disappearing down the East Steps. This second viewing allowed me enjoy the bird in a less frenzied manner and really soak in the beauty of the bird and in quite the magical spot. Many thanks to Niall Keogh and Tom Kelly for being very sharp at the other end of the phone.

Blackburnian Warbler, on beehive hut, Skellig Micheal (Brian Power).

 The next morning yielded no sign of the Blackburnian warbler, however the Rosy Starling was still audible about the place. A lone Chiffchaff hopped about on the way back to saddle, following this I scanned the entrance way to the South Peak and was met by an oddly shaped bird with olivey tone and distinct supercilium. It took my brain a few seconds to rewire to American thoughts and then I realised I was looking at a Red Eyed Vireo. With that, the bird followed the trend set my many of its European migrant counterparts and disappeared after only a few seconds viewing. All in all, a cracking end to the season on Skellig.

Brian Power