I've got a few more photos in addition to the one posted further up this thread... will downsize them tonight and post here.
Here we go then... these won't win any prizes for sure, but they may be of interest.
I'm assuming that people are interested in the possibility of Taiga (which I admit I didn't really consider while watching the bird, shame on me
). The backlighting wasn't doing me any favours (and nor was my inability to get the right exposure!), so the colour rendition isn't consistent across all shots, but the following can be determined from at least some of them:
- the bill does have a pale base to the lower mandible
- the breast and flanks do show the typical warm buff wash as expected
Sadly no shot shows any more of the uppertail though.
Also worth commenting that the bird was calling fairly frequently, and I never heard it give anything other than the classic RBFly (i.e. a relatively slow-paced somewhat 'wooden' rattle, not the much faster Taiga version).
Compare all of the above to Hugh Harrop's excellent pics and recording of the Fetlar bird >
here<
Interested to hear other comments (since much of what I know about Taiga Fly has been learned in the last 24 hours!), but basically I'm happy that I've not thrown a mega away!