The Castle Semple gang
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The Upland Sandpiper I found at the end of September was accepted by British Birds Rarities Committee (BBRC) today, thus becoming the first ever record for Fetlar
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Nice one Paul you must be chuffed 
Thanks, I’m happy with it. 7th record for Shetland as a whole and the 47th record (I think) for Britain and Ireland since records began (late 19th century)
I’m fortunate that Fetlar is such a good site for rarities, principally Spring and Autumn. Hopefully I’ll find more rare birds this year.
Indeed and looking forward to some more superb photographs.
that’s great. And a nice picture , you clearly didn’t get into a flap taking it. Time to crow over your success on twitter
That’s quite an achievement, congratulations. As a fairly amateur birder I can only imagine how it must feel to a) spot and photograph the rare bird and b) get it recognised officially, smashing.
The photo is tack-sharp too so not surprised it was accepted.
A beautiful bird too.
Cheers.
The acceptance criteria is very strict (as it has to be) and a full, written description of plumage and jizz has to be submitted along with what optical aids you used, how close you were, what other species were present, weather and direction of sunlight, cloud cover etc etc.
All photographs have to be completely unmodified apart from simple cropping (the pic above has had some minor editing and was not part of the submission) I submitted 8 images of the bird.
It’s all designed to expose spurious claims of which, thankfully, there are very few. Most rejected claims (and there are many) are due to either misidentification or far more often lack of detail in the submission.
Did you get Penance to help you?
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I did wonder how long it would take 
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Is a taste and smell test required?
In that order?
If you like
depends on the quantity of alcohol consumed
Peckham needs to get his finger out. His mates have already started the long trek North but he seems to be lingering in Gabon.
https://www.bto.org/science/migration/tracking-studies/cuckoo-tracking/peckham
I spotted my first Little Owl today - Could not find the Great Grey Shrike though.
Also snapped a parakeet a few weeks ago
The Owl isn’t in captivity -It’s atop an old thatched rood
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The Little Owl has his eyes on you!
Those Rose-ringed Parakeets are becoming a pest, there’s so many of them now and they’re displacing indigenous species.
this is especially the case in the SE. Where people we know used to have a wide range of garden bird visitors, but now only see the pesky Parakeets.