It was time to sally forth once more to do more work on the house in Cornwall. I was going to be heading down on Monday with my younger daughter B and my brother in law was coming down for a few days to lend a hand. On the Friday my VLW and our son L would come down to join us on the train before we all would leave on the following Tuesday. During this rather long stint we were ideally hoping to finish off all the painting as well as assembling the beds and taking delivery of a number of items. Naturally I'd been keeping track of the bird sightings down there in the days leading up to my arrival and there'd been a few hoopoes around but it had all turned rather ominously quiet just before I was due to head down so I was not overly optimistic as we set off on the long journey but at least it would be a chance to spend some more time in my favourite part of the country and there would always be some more birds to add to my Cornish list.
At my suggestion we decided to stop off at a couple of places en route, partly to break up the journey and partly as I quite enjoy getting to know other parts of the county than the Penwith peninsula. The first port of call was Kit Hill where a great grey shrike (not at all common in Cornwall) had been hanging out though it had not been reported for a couple of days and I was not particularly optimistic. We arrived to find it blowing a gale so we ate our sandwiches in the car and had a quick yomp around the summit though in the conditions the birds were sensibly keeping their heads well down and I saw nothing. B was singularly unimpressed with this first stop-off and re-named it Shit Hill.
Next stop was Golitha Falls which proved to be much more successful. This is a beautiful wooded valley through which the crystal clear river Fowey runs. We could see bluebells getting ready to flower and I can imagine that once they are out it must be absolutely stunning but even B was most impressed with this spot. I had originally learnt about it as a good place for catching up with nuthatch and tree creeper in the county and sure enough within a couple of minute of arriving there was a nuthatch piping away in a tree a few yards from the car park. During our visit I didn't manage to see a tree creeper though I was secretly rather glad about this as it would mean that I would have to visit this fantastic spot again.
Golitha FallsWe sped on towards our destination and arrived in good time to buy some food for our stay and to boot up the cottage and get settled in.
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