Pechora Pipit - I don't have to say "I told you so"
The closest weekend to September 21st of any given year is guaranteed to produce some of the best birding in the UK. Some may say this is because the autumn migration is in full swing, and the weather patterns produce some amazing wildlife in the UK, but those people are wrong. The real reason that this is always a brilliant weekend is that I have somehow angered the birding gods, and they take it out on me by flooding my daughter's birthday around this time with incredible birds. As that weekend is always booked up with family and friends celebrating, I never even consider picking up the bins, instead, when I grab 5 minutes to check my phone I'm inundated with BirdGuides notifications and messages from WhatsApp groups about the birds I'm missing. In 2022 it was a Roller in Devon. In 2023 it was the huge American influx including Canada Warbler. In 2024 it was a Pallas' Grasshopper Warbler in Northumberland and an Eastern Olivaceous Warbler at Flamborough. So when news broke of a Pechora Pipit on mainland England on Sunday 21st I wasn't surprised at all, and to my "I told you this would happen!" message my friends all replied, "hard luck, hope it sticks."
I realised today that I don't know how to pronounce Pechora, whether it's a soft ch or a hard ch, and this is probably because I rarely have cause to use the word. Using at least two different pronunciations, I'm sure I confused plenty of people today. This bird in Trow Quarry in South Shields was the first proven Pechora Pipit in mainland UK since one in 2007 in Pembrokeshire. Individuals in Cornwall (1995 and 1996) and the Farne Islands (1995), Filey (1994) and at Land's End (1990) show how rare this bird is away from the Shetland Islands (and other Scottish isles). This would be a genuine candidate for bird of the year even amongst the stellar collection of species I've seen during my Big Year. So I determined that if anyone caught it going to roost I would set off early and be there before first light to try and catch it before it leaves. Waking up at 2am (45 minutes before the alarm!) I was on the road by 2.35, and by 5.30 I was waiting 20 metres from the roost, which was in a small willow. It was absolutely freezing! The ice warning in my car came on during the journey, and gloves and hat were on - a real rarity before November for me! This wasn't a good sign - a cold, clear, windless night could mean the bird had gone south, though the fact that it had roosted gave me some hope.
In the half-light around 6.20, myself and another birder saw a pale pipit fly low from the willow and drop into dense scrub. I was quietly confident that it was the Pechora but I just hadn't got the light to identify the bird strongly enough to claim to others. I let the gathering group know that I thought I'd seen it, wasn't 100% sure, and told them where it had dropped in. Immediately a group of birders dismissed it amongst themselves as a Meadow Pipit despite not having seen the bird. That "we know better" attitude that is so irritating and such a barrier for new birders to overcome, I genuinely have to swallow anger when I hear some insufferable bloody "expert" tell me I'm wrong when I'm trying to share and help find a bird. Not that I mind being wrong - it's always good to learn and it's better to share info and be mistaken than sit quietly in case you're wrong; but I do mind being dismissed by someone not even present to see what I've seen. Instead of getting frustrated, I simply waited for the bird to reappear, and when it didn't I began to walk the edges of the scrub to see if I could see any movement.
Twenty minutes later, I rejoined the group - one of those where the constituents are constantly changing as people give up, get cold, have to leave for work and so on. I was told that there had been one dodgy report of a pipit leaving the roost and was given the impression that it wasn't to be trusted. I smiled, knowing they were talking about my own sighting and had lost track of who had said it. Negative news was posted online, and an increasing number of twitchers left with glum faces. I'm always a bit torn on the posting of negative news. On the one hand, it can save people a journey, but often, like today, that news was posted after an hour of searching which simply wasn't enough time. I wonder how many people delayed or cancelled or changed plans to go and see the Pechora based on one person who had decided on behalf of the whole community that the bird wasn't present?
Over the next hour the group dispersed and I spent a little time looking through the photos of the twitch that people had posted on Bluesky, just to get a feel for where the Pechora might like to perch or feed. Seeing one picture with a distinctive skyline in the backdrop I walked to the edge of the thistle-cover and instantly a pale pipit flew out of the scrub and up into a sycamore on the quarryside. Before I could get more than one other person on it, it flew overhead, and happily the main group got on the bird. It called twice as it flew directly over the large body of birders, before circling down and landing in dense cover. I resisted the urge to find my doubting Thomas and say, "told you so," because I'm 45, and at 45 you have to at least pretend to have some self-control and manners. See, birding gods, I am trying.
Three times in the next twenty minutes the Pechora flew, circling, engaging with a Meadow Pipit overhead, and landing out of sight, while forty birders charged back and forth across the quarry. I'm sure that given some breathing space it may have come out to feed in the open, as photos from yesterday show, but it wasn't giving any sign of that in the morning, and after four hours and five extended views, as well as probably seeing it leave the roost, I left the group and set off for home. What a bird! Lovely pale wing bars and an overall feel of shortness in flight along with a couple of diagnostic flight calls clinched the ID, and this sighting gave me hope that autumn is finally coming to the north.
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