Monday 27th October: Pendeen & Penzance

Another low key day today. I'd resolved to crack on with some of the cottage tasks first thing this morning and then perhaps to do a spot of birding later on, especially if either the Radde's Warbler or the Red-Breasted Flycatcher were still present. That was the plan anyway.. Firstly, however, I did a quick tour of Pendeen though as to be expected there was precious little apart from a couple of dozen Mipits, a single fly-over Skylark and a Buzzard. I often find that when its windy, Pendeen can be rather birdless. 

I returned to find that my VLW had arranged for her sister and husband to come and visit for the afternoon - it was something that we were intending to arrange whilst we were down but we'd not yet finalised a particular day. They were currently down in Cornwall visiting their daughter and their new granddaughter who live up-county in Porthtowan. So it looked like I wasn't going to get much birding in today. Fortunately news gradually filtered through on RBA and via Philary that neither the Radde's nor the Flycatchers were about so fortunately I wasn't actually missing anything. I busied myself clearing out our shed so that we could store away our garden furniture for the winter. Then it was off for a run to the St. Erth dump to get rid of the shed contents and to pick up some food for lunch. Lewis Thompson texted that he'd found a Siberian Stonechat down near Porthgwarra - a nice find and a bird that I would have liked to see. However, Dave Parker later texted to say that there was no sign of it when he looked so I was saved another disappointing dip. On the way back from the dump I stopped in briefly to check up on the Rose-coloured Starling which was still hanging out behind the KFC on the wires. This seems to be the only rare bird that I'm seeing at present! 

My one bird friend the Rose-coloured Starling

Then it was back home for our guests.. We passed a very pleasant afternoon chatting and catching up and then doing a little walk along the coastal path to the Geevor tin mine, then back up to Pendeen (no time for Heathers tea shop today sadly) and back to the cottage again. On the circuit I managed to spot a plant that I wasn't familiar with and thanks to iSpot I can now tell you that it is Scurvygrass, so called because sailors used to use it to cure scurvy. I presume from the location and the shape of the leaves that it's Common Scurvygrass though apparently they can be a tricky group to separate.

 

Common (presumably) Scurvygrass

We waved our guests off early and then settled in for another quiet night. Another enjoyable and productive day though not much birding action.