Sunday 16th March: Back Home

Sadly, our time here was already up. This morning we woke up to yet more fog and set about finishing off our oustanding DIY tasks before packing up ready for our departure. By about half past one we were finally ready to leave and set off on the long journey back to Oxford. The only point of note on the trip was that my VLW thought that she saw a Black Kite fly over us on the M4 just as we approached our junction 15 turn-off. Whilst she's not a birder at all, she knows Red Kites pretty well and described this as smaller, very dark and with only a shallow fork in the tail. Sounds promising though sadly I never saw it.

Drinker Moth Caterpillar

An Early Grey Moth that L found yesterday

It was another enjoyable stay down in our favourite part of the country though this time it was rather hard physical work with not much leisure time for birding. I would have liked to have seen the Polgigga Hoopoe but time was against me. By way of compensation for the lack of birding at least I got to treat myself to the Great Spotted Cuckoo on the way down.

Saturday 15th March: Pendeen Again

As I said yesterday, I wasn't going to have much opportunity to go out birding and with plenty of DIY to crack on with for both my VLW and myself it was another low key day.

Fortunately the weather was much better today though predictably it started off with some good old Pendeen fog. However, by mid morning it had all burnt off leaving a gorgeously sunny day with very little wind. One forgets just how lovely it is down at Pendeen when the weather is really good - I really wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world. I took a little break after lunch to wander about a bit with my camera and managed to take some snaps of the local birds with my superzoom camera. There were some nice Chiffchaffs by the coast path pool, the two Ravens seemed to be chasing a third bird off their territory and I spotted a Peregrine down by the cliffs.

Late afternoon we realised that some of our paint had gone off so I made a quick dash over to PZ while my VLW and L went for a walk down to the local cove. After having bought the paint I checked in on RBA only to discover that the Hoopoe which had been knocking around Polgigga for the last few days had been located and was showing well near the turn-off for Trebehor. I was tempted to make a little detour to see it but it would be a good twenty minutes to get there and then another twenty minutes back to the cottage from there and it was getting late so in the end I just went straight back to Pendeen. There I met the rest of the family on their way back from their walk. They'd seen a pod of Porpoises or Dolphins which they'd followed back to the lighthouse so I went to take a look for myself and soon found them feeding opposite the lighthouse. From what I could tell (though I'm not expert) they were mostly Porpoises though there seemed to be one Dolphin in amongst them. I even managed a few snaps with the superzoom.

I think that this is a Porpoise (please correct me if I'm wrong)

Friday 14th March: Pendeen

Usually on my trips down here I make sure that I manage to get in some good local birding in between DIY tasks but on this occasion I had lots that needed to be done and only limited time in which to do it so birding opportunities were going to be very limited and confined to Pendeen and its environs.

I awoke to a thick Pendeen fog this morning but despite the conditions still decided to crack on with my exterior decorating. I worked hard all morning and managed to cover a good bit of what I wanted to do that day. One advantage of working outside is that one can keep tabs on what's going on in the area. I soon heard the local Ravens cronking away and kept hearing a Golden Plover type of call coming from some nearby field. Now anywhere else I'd be content that it was just a European Golden Plover but as this is Cornwall I thought that I'd better investigate in case it was a rarer vagrant so after lunch I decided to go for a quick look for it before my afternoon decorating session. Fortunately it called periodically and I was soon able to locate it sitting forlornly and fog bound in a field on the footpath to Lower Boscaswell though disappointingly it was just a Euro GP after all. There were lots of Chiffchaffs about, calling in the stream valley and around the pool on the coast path, they seemed to be everywhere. That evening I went into PZ to do some shopping and then to pick up my VLW and L who arrived on the evening train.

On the moth front I found a rather faded Dotted Border by the front porch this morning as well as another Red Chestnut and a rather striking looking Caddis fly.

Dotted Border

Caddis Fly

Thursday 13th March: Coming Down via Penally

I'm back down in my beloved Cornwall for a long weekend of intense decorating. With the persistent windy and rainy weather having finally moved on and a spell of high pressure forecast I was taking the opportunity finally to get some of the exterior rennovation done on the cottage before our first guests arrived at the start of April. The plan was that I'd go down on Thursday with my VLW and our son L coming down on the evening train the next day. We'd then stay until either Sunday or Monday depending on how the work went.

With a solo car journey ahead of me naturally, I cast around for something good to stop off for en route. The only thing of note that I could find was the Great Spotted Cuckoo near Tenby in darkest Pembrokeshire. This was quite a detour (more than two hours each way) from my route and in the past I'd have balked at such a plan but in this case there was nothing else on offer and it was very quiet down in Cornwall itself so I thought that I'd take the trouble to go out of my way for this as it was probably the only decent bird I was likely to get during the visit. Of course, there was also the added incentive that this was a Great Spotted Cuckoo after all - not something that one is able to see every day of the week.

Thus it was that having packed the car the previous night I set off shortly before 8am into what turned out to be a blanket of thick fog that was shrouding much of the country. Fortunately visibility wasn't too bad, especially once I got onto the motorway and I was able to make good time, finally arriving at Penally station car park at around 11:30 a.m. (as predicted by the RAC website). En route I'd had a couple of encouraging "still present" RBA texts come through so I was in an optimistic frame of mind. As I approached Penally itself I could see the silhouette of a group of birders standing on a mound over on the golf course - at least there wasn't going to be a problem with locating the twitch. I tooled up as quickly as possible and hurried towards them, noting a singing Cetti's Warbler in some scrub as I went.

Penally golf course with Tenby in the distance

There, in amongst the dozen or so birders there I met up with Terry Sherlock (from Oxon) who'd come down for first light though the fog then had been so bad that it had taken two hours longer than it should have done. It turned out that the bird had been seen regularly and well up until about five minutes ago before it ducked down behind a hillock out of view. I joined the group in waiting for the bird to appear. Terry showed me some gripping photos off the back of his camera whilst we waited. It's always nerve racking in such situations - everyone else had already seen the bird and was relaxed about it whereas I'd come a long way out of my way and really didn't want to go home empty handed. After about half an hour (though it seemed much longer) it flew out of its hiding place and perched in a gorse bush about 75 yards away for several minutes. Relieved, I quickly rattled off some digiscoped snaps.

After that it was a case of following what turned out to be a very mobile bird around the golf course, taking care to keep to the paths and not to disturb the golfers though they seemed very relaxed about it all and were keen to know what we were all up to. We got regular views of it as it worked its way around the place and in the hazy mist I endeavoured to take some more snaps though none of them came out particularly well. In fact it took a remarkable amount of Photoshopping to get them even looking like this. The bird would regularly be harried by the local magpies and we would be treated to great flight views as they moved the Cuckoo on.

After a couple of hours I decided that with a long journey still ahead of me I couldn't afford to linger any longer so I made my way back towards the car, again hearing and this time actually briefly seeing the Cetti's Warbler. It was supposed to take five hours from there down to Penzance and I was wondering how well I'd cope given that I'd already done three and a half hours on the road that morning but in the event it was fine and I did the whole leg in one go with the radio for company to keep my spirits up. It was remarkable how foggy it was once I got to Cornwall itself and for the entire length of the county it was fairly thick. Once in Penzance I stopped off at a supermarket for provisions and then headed over to Pendeen where of course the fog was even thicker. I unpacked the car to the accompaniment of the fog horn and hurried inside to boot up the cottage. It was good to be back down

I didn't bring my moth trap down with me but as it was foggy (which seems to be good for moths) I left the outside light on and soon attracted several Red Chestnuts (thanks to John Swann for the ID correction) and an Early Thorn.

Friday 21st February - Back Home

We decided to head off home today so at a reasonable (but not too early) hour we got up and busied ourselves with packing the car and putting the cottage to rights. It was a windy but sunny morning and periodically I would scan the sea to watch the Auks, Kittiwakes, Gannets & Fulmars hurrying by. Finally by late morning we were ready to depart and headed north along the A30. Our journey home was a bit tiresome, beset as it was by various traffic incidents - it even took a good half an hour just to get into Oxford for some reason. Nevertheless we arrived back safely mid-afternoon to catch up with our two daughters who'd been guarding the fort back home.

Looking back, it had been a fairly low key few days down in Cornwall though at this time of year of course that is to be expected. I'd managed to catch up with the main birds of note whilst down there: the Surf Scoter had been nice to see at such close quarters and I'd enjoyed the Glaucous Gull and particularly the adult Kumlien's Gull. There had also been the supporting cast of the usual sea birds, Divers and Auks etc  and it was nice to get some year ticks with those. The only sore point had been the Laughing Gull though to all intents and purposes it had not been twitchable so I'd not really missed anything.

Because of the on-going damp problems I'll certainly need to be back fairly soon to sort things out - I can't wait to return.

I leave you with a great photo taken by Tony Mills (c) of what was the bird of the trip for me, namely the adult Kumlien's Gull. You can see more of Tony's great photos at: www.notjustbirds.com and www.photoartbytonymills.com/

Thursday 20th February, Pendeen & Penzance

With a forecast of stronger winds and more inclement weather and also a late night from yesterday, I elected to have a lie-in this morning. In the event the weather was better than originally forecast with some nice sunshine in the morning though it was rather windy and every now and then a passing squall would dump a load of rain on the cottage. We busied ourselves with various DIY tasks: I was weather-proofing the garden furniture which had taken a real battering over the winter. The previous set had lasted less than a year so I wanted to try and get a bit more life out of this one. In between painting I would occasionally cast the bins in the direction of the sea where in the bright light I could see plenty of Kittiwakes, Gannets and Auks flying past. I also spotted some Fulmars flying close in near the cliffs.

After lunch L and I went for a walk down to the local cove. En route I watched the birds passing on the sea but it was all the usual stuff. On the way back I bumped into a lady birder whom I'd met a couple of times previously. She'd been doing a sea-watch from her car but didn't have anything of particular note to report apart from a Black-throated Diver on the sea. 

Late afternoon my VLW decided that she wanted a nap so L and I decided to head over towards Mounts Bay. We started at the bus station where I found a nice big raft of small gulls quite close in. I went through it several times, hoping to turn up the Laughing Gull but the best that I could find was an adult Mediterranean Gull and a Kittiwake. Out in the bay I managed to count a total of at least five Great Northern Divers. I didn't spot the Surf Scoter but to be honest I wasn't really looking for it.

Some of the bird out in the bay this evening

We next nipped round to the Station House car park but there was no sign of any gulls so with the light fast fading we moved on to the Red River estuary which again was birdless. After that we nipped into the supermarket to pick up some shopping and then it was back home for dinner and to get ready for our departure tomorrow.

Wednesday 19th February: Marazion

From my experience yesterday I decided that checking out Marazion first thing would be best for the elusive Laughing Gull so I was up before dawn and down by the Station House car park as it got light. In stark contrast to yesterday, it was grey, gloomy, breezy and cold though at least it wasn't raining. I wasn't alone in having this idea as Brian Mellow was also there as well as a visiting Devon birder called Dave. As it was around high tide there were plenty of gulls about to look through and between us we soon managed to conjure up the adult Glaucous Gull, the adult Kumlien's Gull and a couple of Mediterranean Gulls. There was also the odd Kittiwake, a Guillemot and a pair of Long-tailed Ducks feeding very close in to the shore. Needless to say there was no sign of the Laughing Gull.

Dave Parker turned up briefly and we had a chat. before he had to head off for work. Periodically the Glaucous Gull and the Kumlien's would take turns to fly along the beach in front of us and it was interesting to note the subtle differences. Even from a distance the Glaucous Gull's wing tips were a brilliant shining white which really stood out whereas the Kumlien's had a more muted paleness to its tips. At close quarters of course one could distinguish the dark grey streaks along the primaries of the Kumlien's. Apart from that there were a few Sanderling, a small flock of Oystercathers and various bits and bobs. I stuck it out, getting increasingly cold, until just before 9am when I returned to the cottage to warm up. I was pleased to have caught up with the rest of the local gull interest though this Laughing Gull was starting to annoy me. It's interesting how, after the initial finding, all the views are very brief and are often only "reported" or at least not from named locals, so one wonders how accurate some of these later sightings actually are.

A fairly rubbish bit of digiscoped video of the adult Glaucous Gull...

...and a grab from the same video

The rest of the day was spent doing various DIY tasks around the cottage. We're having a real problem with damp coming in which we can't seem to stop - it's a real pain. Needless to say, later on the Laughing Gull came up on RBA as having been "reported" again with a brief sighting that morning in Marazion. It's remarkable how elusive it is compared to the other gulls there which you can catch up with fairly easily with a bit of searching. I remain somewhat sceptical though perhaps it's just sour grapes on my part.

Late afternoon we nipped back into town for some shopping and stopped briefly by the Station House car park again though it was so dark and gloomy by then that there was nothing to be seen. Then we headed north up to Porthtowan to have dinner with my VLW's niece and her partner in their new house. We arrived back home to a real Pendeen fog, thick and impenetrable and hurried to our warm beds.