Yellow-bellied Sapsucker On Isles Of Scilly 50th Anniversary, 4th October 1975

First-winter male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Tresco, Scilly, September 1975 (David Hunt).

This Saturday, 4th October 2025, is the 50th anniversary of my seeing Yellow-bellied Sapsucker on Scilly. It's still the only record for the UK.

The previous Saturday 27th September 1975, myself & Pete Walton spent the day in the Heliport at Penzance failing to to get a flight to Scilly. We had taken the overnight train from Liverpool to Penzance, knowing the train would not arrive before the boat departed, but hoping some sort of miracle would aid us in our quest. It didn't! All day we watched many birders we knew board flight after flight. It was peak season & seemingly no one had failed to turn up for their flight. At this point not only was there Yellow-bellied Sapsucker on the islands, but also Scarlet Tanager & Black-and-White Warbler. A trio of American megas! The third member of our Wirral trio of birders, Paul Lewis, was already on Scilly having traveled from Fair Isle & saw all three megas! Pete & I visited Stithians Reservoir on the Sunday, but failed to see anything of interest & then caught the train back to Liverpool.

A week later the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker was still present, although the other two birds had departed. My dad drove us to Penzance overnight, arriving in plenty of time to board The Scillonian. It was a pleasant journey over to the islands. At Hugh Town pier on St. Mary's there were boats waiting to take everyone over to Tresco. It's all a bit of a blur, but we were all shepherded along various paths to where the bird was. We spent what seemed like a very short time watching the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker before it was time to leave for the boat back to St. Mary's. My first visit to the Isles Of Scilly had been a memorable success. It was Pete's second visit, having spent some time on the islands the previous autumn in 1974. The journey home was uneventful. My dad had sent a postcard from Penzance which arrived a few days later!

Birdguides published an interesting article in 2013 written by Steve Whitehouse entitled "Days to Remember: twitching the Scilly sapsucker."

First-winter male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Tresco, Scilly, September 1975 (David Hunt).