Tuesday 25th October - Pendeen

I awoke this morning to a typical Pendeen fog that so often accompanies calm weather in this region. No point in doing the rounds in that I thought and boiled up a cup of tea and turned the computer on in order to catch up with my blogging. I just glanced out of the window a few minutes later and miraculously the fog had completely lifted. So I gave my freshly made tea to my VLW instead who was just herself waking up, and I quickly got dressed and headed out to see what was about.

In the calmer conditions there were noticeably more birds about with plenty of Robins, Wrens and Dunnocks to be seen. What's more the actual birding was so much easier without the wind to contend with. There wasn't much in the way of overhead movement however, with just the odd Chaffinch, a couple of Skylarks and a few Mipits passing over. In the event it was pretty much a case of the usual suspects with the two resident Ravens and the two Chough still about as well as a few Stonechats and the local Buzzard. Five Snipe flew over which was quite unusual for here. Up at Calartha Copse in the calm and now sunny conditions I soon managed to find Lewis T's Yellow-browed Warbler from yesterday and I spent some time enjoying one of my favourite species even though their currency has been somewhat debased of late by the vast hoards hitting this country this autumn.

With rarer Accentors stealing the birding headlines nationally at the moment, it's worth taking a moment to appreciate the humble Dunnock

Back at the cottage we weren't really sure what to do today and with no news at all on RBA to help us in this decision we hummed and hawed for some time before eventually deciding, given how lovely the weather was, that we would take a picnic down to our local beach at Portheras Cove. There were quite a few other people there all enjoying the wonderful conditions. Our son when for a paddle whilst I enjoyed a bit of a nap on the beach. There wasn't a great deal of activity on the bird front though a Grey Heron did come "in-off", two Rock Pipits were buzzing around the cliffs and a Little Egret flew overhead towards the lighthouse.

This seal seemed to have a huge grin on its face, obviously enjoying the sunny weather

On the way back we met some of our neighbours as well as a bride and groom treading gingerly along the muddy track in all their finery in order to have a wedding ceremony on the beach itself.

You couldn't ask for a better location to get married

Back at the cottage we pootled around for the rest of the day and vegged out in front of the telly in the evening before going to sleep quite early, tired out from all the fresh air that we'd enjoyed.

Given the exciting rare Wheatears that are hitting the country natiowide at present I've been looking out for them this week, though this one is sadly just a Northern Wheatear