Posted by Brydon Thomason on Sunday 14th December 2008 | Birding in Shetland, Brydon's Shetland Nature Blog

For any aspiring rarity finder or indeed British lister, Ivory gull must be one of those birds that feature highly on every ones winter wish list. It had for me personally become something of a mythical dream bird. Like so many birders up and down the country, for over twenty years I have searched the beaches round my local patch, Fetlar, for a seal or a cetacean carcase to steak out in the optimistic hope of it luring in one of these mega Arctic larads.

This year I decided to push my optimism and enthusiasm (desperation) levels a little further by actually ‘baiting’ a beach. After some thought I decided that the north- west tip of the island at Odsta, facing Bluemull sound, was as good a bet as any for a ‘coasting’ Arctic scavenger, hoping that from here a bird may be lured in from nearby islands of Yell and Unst too.

In mid November gales and snow from the north and north-east was forecast, ideal conditions and timing for an Ivory gull I and I’m sure many others thought. I gathered together some sheep remains and left them well above the tide line- days later one was found in ‘Shetlands big smoke’, Lerwick! To the disappointment of many, myself included the Lerwick sighting was all too brief and was only seen by one observer.

Over 30 miles out with my choice of site but out of the 1,600 miles of Shetland coastline, Fetlar was all ways going to be my first choice, especially as the species was long overdue for the island list. Over the next week or so I added more sheep remains, checking the site as often as I could. On the 14th of December, after not having checked or added more bait for over a week, I, almost routinely, parked up my car above the old slipway, next to my tiny chosen bait beach. A dozen or so ‘into the wind’ strides later, my legs ceased to stride and instead began to shake as a numbing surge of adrenalin either left or entered my body (in those circumstances I always find it hard to tell which!) at a stupendous rate, less than 40 feet away from me sat on the rocks was a 1st winter Ivory gull!! My legs maybe felt like they were not working but my voice certainly was not, probably best if I pretend it wasn’t though and leave out the chosen words! A long awaited new species, for myself and the island.

Strangely, there was nothing left of my bait, although there was a newly washed ashore sheep carcass, which it paid no attention to. It seemed very settled in and around that little area only on a couple of occasions did it fly off a short distance along the coast, never even out of site. It being Sunday and ferries on winter timetable only three birders made it in so in a bid to keep it there, at least till next day, I decided to raid the freezer, hoping to find last summers Mackerel or Pollock. A side of Shetland smoked salmon was all I could find, to offer it some of the finest of Shetlands gourmet delights was the least I could do!

For the rest of that day it gorged itself on the salmon at regular intervals, seemingly too much so as when I tried to offer it fresh fish remains (skate and whiting) the next day it completely ignored it! This is probably quite typical of the species though as they are probably used to going for days without food between polar bear kills and other preferred food sources, the cullonary delights of the isles, I suspect might not be so redily available up there!