Saturday 7th April, St Just to Pendeen

At last the inclement weather was gone! We awoke to a blissfully calm day and by mid morning full-on sunshine had broken out everywhere. The birds were clearly liking the better weather as well as for once the grapevine was active with news from DP of an early morning Hoopoe seen in flight at Cot and an Alpine Swift at the Lizard. On my Pendeen rounds there were four Chiffchaff, including a singing male, the usual Raven, Buzzard and Kestrel and a total of fourteen Swallows and two Sand Martins "in-off" during the course of the morning. Best of all was my first Wheatear of the year which posed beautifully on top of the shed roof behind the cottage for quite some time until my son had to get something out of the car close by whereupon it flitted off northwards.

Wheatear

As the weather was so sublime we decided to take full advantage of it and to do our favoured walk from St Just back to Pendeen along the coastal path. So after an early lunch we walked up the hill to Pendeen to catch the bus over to St Just. There we bought the traditional ice cream treats to send us on our way before walking down the lane towards Boscean and Kenidjack. In the calm conditions there were birds to be seen everywhere though they were all Chiffies apart from a single skulking Blackcap. A Buzzard was soaring overhead, taking advantage of the good weather though there were sadly no donkeys to be seen today. At the top of the path we met JS & E and passed the time catching up on news for a while.

Along the walk we saw just the usual species in the usual places but as the weather was so perfect it didn't really matter. When we got to Geevor I paid special attention and sure enough soon found a smart male Wheatear which was even singing. There was also a single Chiffchaff looking most incongurous in amongst the mining ruins. Half way between Geevor and Pendeen I came across a very smart pair of Rock Pipits, looking very colourful  in their summer plumage, in fact almost Water Pipit-like and they had such strong supers that I did wonder about litoralis. Finally we were back at the cottage for a well-earned cup of tea and a snack before settling in for the rest of the day.