Sunday 23rd October - Pendeen

It was a very quiet day today. The forecast was for strong easterly winds and this was indeed what we awoke to so, with no overnight bird news that I needed to respond to, I decided to have a decent lie in today as I had a bit of a sleep deficit to make up from the last few days. Eventually at around 9:30 I got up and decided to do the Pendeen rounds though in the strong winds it was tough going and sadly there was no sign of yesterday's Black Redstart around the cottages at all. Down by the Old Count House I bumped into another visiting birder who'd just arrived for the week so we got chatting and exchanged mobile numbers in case either of us should find something good. I birded the patch diligently but with precious little reward with the highlights being 1 Redwing, 2 Chough, 1 Raven and 1 Peregrine. I worked my way down the western coastal path as far as the stream where it was mercifully more sheltered but I still couldn't find anything apart from a single Stonechat. In the end I gave up and came back to the cottage.

Next I decided to inspect the moth trap. I wasn't expecting much after the cold clear night but in the event I was pleasantly surprised as I had a trap full of Feathered Ranunculus with several dozen of them. Apart from that it was just singles of Angled Shades, Large Yellow Underwing, Lunar Underwing and a Setaceous Hebrew Character.

One of many Feathered Ranunculus

We didn't have any real plans for today so in the end we decided to do some light chorage about the cottage and packed away our garden furniture for the winter as well as bringing in a wooden bench from the shed which needed painting. After that we had lunch and then eventually decided on doing one of our classic local walks, namely down to Geevor tin mine, then up to the main road and stopping in at Heathers café for refreshments before returning along the road to the cottage. It was a pleasant enough walk and there were even a few flowers still out despite the lateness in the season. In the café we chanced upon Dave C, a fellow regular visiting birder to this area. He and his wife had also only just come down and given the windy weather had also decided to have a lazy day. We checked that our mobile numbers were up to date and both hoped that we'd see each other again later in the week at "the big one".

Apple-of-Peru

After our tea and walk back we mooched about the cottage doing nothing in particular. Our  eldest daughter who's currently at Durham University rang for a chat which was nice. Early evening the rain came in which put the kaibosh on any meteor spotting or mothing so we had a quiet night in. There'd been almost no RBA Cornish news today to shape any plans for tomorrow so all in all a very quiet day.