Adrian Webb and I had bit of an adventure up to Fair Isle for the Siberian Rubythroat and the Savannah Sparrow, an overnight drive to Inverness ended in frustration as our plane had been double booked, frantic phone calls led to a race up to Wick to get another flight to Kirkwall where we would wait for an hour for the plane to be used for an already booked flying lesson before continuing to Fair Isle. More frantic calls for info on the status of the birds before finally taking off again, only to find that bad weather had set in leaving us unable to land as the airstrip at Fair Isle was closed. Back to Kirkwall for the night and a few beers plus a curry to drown our sorrows.

Sunday morning arrived bright and breezy, the Sparrow was showing but the Rubythroat had not yet been located when we took off again, joy on our faces when we landed to news that the Rubythroat was seen at the Kirk earlier. A very friendly Dennis Coutts drove us to the Savannah Sparrow for some crippling views and images, then we headed off to see the Rubythroat, a considerably more difficult bird to connect with, after a considerable wait we did get an all to brief view of it before it disappeared for a while.

We headed back to the Savannah Sparrow as the light had moved around offering a better chance of less contrasty images, sure enough the bird was still in the same place and many photos were taken. The shout came up that the Rubythroat had shown again so we chased off for that, stopping to photograph some very confiding Redwing and Twite on the way, also seeing many Goldcrests and Chiffchaff.

Many more birders had arrived so with more pairs of eyes it should be easier to find the bird again, but it still proved to be elusive, it was however re found at the Kirk to the delight of some 30+ birders, we all managed to see the bird, I even managed to get the camera on it and just about get it focused, alas it flew at the same time as I hit the shutter, the result being a nice shot of an empty wall.......you can't win 'em all! The weather was closing in and everyone had to leave by 3:30pm when the airstrip would close, so whilst I had finally caught up with the 'Holy grail' of a bird, I sadly did not get any pictures of it, perhaps the next one will be a little more cooperative.