Wednesday 9th Pendeen

Today was forecast to be a strong wind, almost exactly due north so clearly a day which favoured Pendeen over Porthgwarra. That was good because we had my VLW's niece visiting us this morning so I wasn't going to be able to head off to PG anyway. Instead I got up reasonably early and headed down to the lighthouse where I found twenty or so birders all gazing intently at the sea. The first thing I noticed was that there were no locals apart from TM there. That was a bad sign! I was guessing that actually it was too far north for their liking - Pendeen is really at its best with a north westerly wind and this was probably just too straight-on into the shore. Also, it's relatively early in the season and Pendeen only really comes into its own from September onwards apparently. I asked the birder next to me how it had been and apparently I'd just missed a single Cory's so far. I sat down to watch and it was really slow, I mean, pretty terrible to be honest. During the hour and a half that I gave it, I personally saw just two Common Scoter flocks of note. Around me a couple of Balearics were called and TM had a couple of Arctic Skuas that no one else could get on and that was it. I soon gave it up as a bad job and headed back to home and had a quick catch-up nap to compensate for my getting up earlier than I would have liked. Mid morning our visitor arrived and we duly passed a very pleasant few hours with her and her two children, including her few month old new daughter who was one of the most placid babies that I'd ever met!

After lunch we pootled around for a bit and I suggested a local walk to check out some of the speciality butterflies that can be found in the area. Just two members of the family decided to accompany me so we headed off to the "adder pit" as it's affectionately known by us though we didn't encounter any today. In a relatively quick wander around I managed to find a Grayling and some Blues that may well have been Silver-studded though they never settled for long enough and I didn't really have the time to stake them out thoroughly. I had a quick look for Heath-spotted Orchids though there was no sign and I'm guessing that if the Penwith peninsular has been anything like up country, then all the orchids have been really early this year and had probably gone over already.

A Grayling

Then it was back to the cottage for dinner and to settle down for the evening.