Saturday 11th September: Marazion

The next morning I got up early and went back to spend an hour checking 60 foot cover some more for the warbler but without any luck. Back at the cottage I finished off sorting out the bookcase and then it was a day of family activities around the cottage and later in Penzance. We had lunch by the beach at Marazion and I took the opportunity to do a bit of digiscoping of the ringed plovers and dunlin on the beach though the light wasn't that great.

A juvenile dunlin having a good probe...

...and a juvenile ringed plover foraging

That afternoon it was rather frustrating to get regular Bird Guides text messages about how well the melodious warbler was showing at Porthgwarra albeit in a different location from before. A juvenile buff-breasted sandpiper had also appeared at Davidstow airfield though that was perhaps an hour away from Penzance. Unable to get out birding at all, we had a pleasant enough family afternoon in Penzance and L and I checked out the harbour's boats and looked in the rock pools whilst the others did some shopping.

Friday 10th September: Porthgwarra

The next morning I planned to get up early to do some sea watching. With a strong south westerly wind forecast, rather than my local spot at Pendeen I was thinking that Porthgwarra would be a better bet. For a couple of years I'd been keen to visit the South-West seawatch that takes place there each autumn at Gwenapp Head so I thought that I'd have a go this morning. I met the official bird recorder for the day in the car park and we walked up together, rendezvous'ing with the mammal recorder on the Head. It was a very quiet start to the session with very few birds seen in the first hour. We had perhaps eight or so balearic shearwaters and even fewer manxies, a dozen or so kittiwakes, a few dozen auks, about three or four bonxies and an adult pale morph arctic skua.

In the strong winds a couple of ships got into difficulties
and the lifeboat went by a couple of times

After a couple of hours I decided that I had to leave to get on with some work down in the cottage so I made my way back to Pendeen. I spent the next few hours dismantling a bespoke MDF bookshelf that the previous owners had had installed. This was a rather tedious process as I only had a jigsaw to cut it up with but eventually I managed to get it all down. By now I'd had enough DIY for the day and as I was feeling rather dusty I needed some fresh air. With a melodious warbler belatedly reported in 60 foot cover as well as a wryneck at the Coastguard cottages at Porthgwarra it seemed obvious that I should head back there. I spent a brief time checking out 60 foot and the cottages but to no avail so I walked back up to the Head where I met up with the sea watch team again. The big news was the Runnel Stone, the buoy to mark the edge of the reef just of Gwenapp Head, had come adrift and was floating off. The coastguards had been informed and a boat was going to come down from Portsmouth to re-install it. On the bird front a sooty shearwater and a Sabine's gull had been the highlights whilst I had been away. I settled down with them for another hour which this time was much more active with plenty of birds coming through and we must have added at least 20 balearics during that hour alone. I then headed back to the cottage for dinner and then later that evening picked up the rest of the family at the station at Penzance.

Thursday 9th September: Nanquidno & Land's End

One of the great advantages of renovating a cottage in West Cornwall is that you have to go down there frequently to do work on it. As the children had school to attend (even L our four year old is now going!) the plan was that I'd go down on Thursday in the car and then the rest of the family would come down on the train on Friday evening. This would give me time to do some quality birding work on the cottage before they arrived.

A stonechat on a wall near the cottage, (taken with my point & shoot camera)

The start of the week on the Penwith peninsula before I went down had been full of good birds with a Wilson's phalarope, a whole flock of Ortolan buntings, a citrine wagtail and more wrynecks than you could shake a stick at all around and just waiting to be seen. However by mid week most of them had gone leaving just a few wrynecks around when I set off on Thursday morning. I'd switched my Bird Guides text settings over to just Cornwall before I left and when I arrived a mere four and a quarter hours later (no traffic at all) I looked through them to see what was around. There was a report of one Ortolan bunting in a ploughed field near where the citrine wagtail had been at Nanquidno so I thought that I'd go and take a look on the off chance. It was quite a nice afternoon as I strolled up the hill towards the track and a couple of juvenile buzzards were flapping around and calling loudly as I walked by. At the top of the hill I came across a nice immature white wagtail which I examined closely to check that it wasn't the citrine wagtail but however hard I tried I couldn't turn it into one.

A videograb of a young white wagtail

As I walked along the track to Gurland farm (where the Ortolan field was) there were several wheatears ahead of me hopping on and off the posts and wires as wheatears are wont to do. By the field I found a fellow birder who said that he and two others had been scouring the field for several hours to no avail and that he'd had enough. It clearly wasn't going to be a successful trip but I thought that I'd have a look around whilst I was there. I checked out the field from all angles and also nipped over to see the "muddy puddle" behind the farm where the citrine wagtail had been just recently. There were several white wagtails hanging around, testament to the puddle's wagtail attracting qualities if nothing else. As I strolled back I found a whinchat in the field and more wheatears. Despite the lack of good birds it was very pleasant wandering around in the Cornish countryside in the sunshine.

The famous muddy puddle that the citrine wagtail frequented.
You know it's a poor birding day when you're reduced to photographing puddles!

No ortolan buntings here!

Whilst I was in the area I thought that it would be rude not to drop in at Land's End to see if any of the three (yes three!) reported wrynecks were showing though it was by now getting rather late and it had become a bit breezy. I wandered over to Hallan Vean (the boarded-up white house) keeping a look-out for lapland buntings as one had been seen there a few days ago though all was quiet. As I started down the cycle track towards Trinity Loop I met a fellow birder and we got chatting. He came down to this area each autumn and was keen to show me around so we walked along together scouring the area for wrynecks. There were quite a few stonechats about, sitting on tops of rocks and bushes as well as a couple of whinchat, a few whitethroat and wheatears but the wryneck were all tucked up in their hiding holes for the evening. As I walked back towards the car a female sparrowhawk shot over the field, looking splendid in the evening light. By the Land's End car park there was a whole family of stonechats hopping around at close quarters. It was now getting dark so I headed back to the cottage for the evening.

Sunday 11th July: Pendeen

On Sunday morning I was back down at the lighthouse for another session. Whilst it had been very windy and rainy overnight, by morning it was calm and sunny, much more so than the previous day. I settled down in the same spot as yesterday and started watching. It was immediately obvious that things were slower than yesterday with a manxie rate of just over 60 per hour. Once again there were the usual gannets and fulmars as well as the shags that often rest on the rocks themselves. A few kittiwakes flew through and there were a few auks zipping about. A couple of rock pipits were having a squabble around the lighthouse walls and an inquisitive rabbit came quite close until I moved suddenly. About an hour into the session I picked up something much smaller fluttering along near a manxie. In size and with its white rump it looked like a house martin though the rest of its body was black. It had a very fluttery flight and would settle on the water for a moment before flying up again. I soon lost it amongst the waves but there was no doubting what it was: a storm-petrel. A little while later I had an auk zoom through the scope's field of view which was different enough for me to chase it in the scope: it was smaller than then razorbills and guillemots, seemed to fly faster and I managed to catch a flash of red-orange colour on the bill: puffin! To round of the session I also managed to pick up the huge dorsal fin, smaller tail fin and rounded snout of a basking shark. I tried to video it but it was moving around a lot in the waves and it disappeared before I was able to record it. So all in all, despite the slower activity a most productive morning's session

A meadow pipit and a linnet on the stone wall near the lighthouse,
both taken with my P&S camera.

Later that day I did have time to wander around the various coastal footpaths near the lighthouse. Whilst the really famous Penwith vallies are further south (Cot, Nanjizal etc.) it turned out that there was a very small valley near Pendeen with a little stream flowing down to the sea near what's called Boscaswell Cliff. The terrain was a wonderfully overgrown mix of gorse, ferns and heather. It was full of birds as well with a very entertaining family of stonechats present: the youngsters would buzz around all over the place calling loudly whilst the parents tried to keep them in order. There were also linnets, meadow pipits, wrens, dunnocks, blackbirds, sedge warblers and whitethroats to be found in this area. I started to wonder idly whether some exotic vagrant might turn up in this little valley this autumn. Probably wishful thinking but you never know.

The valley looking seaward by Boscaswell Cliff.

One of the juvenile stonechats taken with my P&S camera

Digiscoped whitethroat...

...and digiscoped sedge warbler

All too soon it was time to head back home and it will be far too long before I am able to return to this wonderful area. I'm looking forward to it already.

Saturday 10th July: Pendeen

Saturday morning started grey and overcast and a bit drizzly (though it brightened up later) as I arrived for my first sea-watching session at the new patch. Round behind the lighthouse in the shelter of the lighthouse wall I found a nice concrete seat at just the right height. From there one had a good view of the rocks that lie just off shore which according to the OS map are called either "The Wra" or "The Three Stone Oar". I trained my scope on the left-hand most one and then moved it up so the rock was just out of view. This gave me a nice marker for finding my viewing spot each time so that if I moved off to follow a bird in flight I could always come back to my spot again. I'm sure that all this will be obvious to regular sea watchers at Pendeen but for me it was all new.

"The Wra". I trained my scope just beyond the left-hand rock.

The Gurnard's Head shortly after dawn

It was obvious from the start that there was quite a lot of activity this morning. To keep track of things I counted the manx shearwaters that went by and over the course of the two hours and twenty minutes that I was there I had a total of 480 birds which comes out at over 200 birds per hour so there was always something to look at. There were perhaps a couple of dozen auks that went through: a mix of razorbills and guillemots. Fulmars nest on the cliffs near the lighthouse so there were plenty of those around and a few kittiwakes flew through looking as beautifully elegant as ever. There were the ubiquitous gannets flying through and the resident shags on the rocks. At around 7:30 I picked up a shearwater that instantly looked different:it had a pot-bellied look and when it rolled to reveal its underside instead of being the clean white of a manxie it was rather a grubby pale brown with a smudged borderline between the brown upper body and the paler underbelly: a balearic shearwater - very nice! I watched if for a minute or so as it worked its way south-west. Later that day one was seen at PG so it may have been the same bird working it's way around the Land's End peninsula. At a little after 8 a.m. I had to pack up but it had been a very enjoyable first morning's birding at Pendeen.

Introduction

My family and I have been coming to the Penwith peninsula at the south-west tip of Cornwall for some years now on family holidays. We started coming at around the time when I got interesting in birding again. This meant that as well as the family appreciating the wonderful coastal scenery and the great beaches I was able to enjoy some of the top birding in the country. Since then I've always kept a keen eye on bird sightings in Cornwall. At Easter whilst down on yet another holiday in the area we stumbled across a house that was for sale in the Pendeen area. We rather fell in love with it and, despite its run down appearance and the fact that it needed a fair amount of work, we decided to buy it. This will mean that I'll be able to visit this beautiful area more frequently and as a keen blogger (Port Meadow Birding, Gnome's Birding Diary) I thought that I would create a blog specifically for my Cornish birding experience. I realise from reading the various blogs that are around that my occasional visits down to the peninsula might seem like mere dabbling compared to those who live there but my intention is to celebrate the wonderful bird and other wildlife of this amazing part of the country albeit with relatively infrequent updates.

I should point out that I am a relatively inexperienced birder, it being just three years since I took it up again. Nevertheless I am keen and a fast learner and am always striving to improve my birding skills. I have also got rather interested in photography but so far have avoided going down the DSLR route preferring to stick to digiscoping and taking shots with my Point & Shoot camera (currently a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7 which has a 10x optical zoom). This means that my shots are never that great in quality but I hope they at least capture the scene well enough for this blog.

The Pendeen Lighthouse

I've added a couple of older posts from my other blog describing the birding that I did previously whilst on family holidays in the area.

Easter Family Holiday

We decided on a last minute family holiday to Cornwall this Easter. It is a location which we often visit and we always go down to the Penwith peninsula which is the furthest south-west you can go. There the coastal scenery is stunning, the beaches are great and there are plenty of walks to go on. In addition to all this it also just happens to be one of the top birding locations in the country for vagrants and also has some of the top sea watching locations in the shape of Porthgwarra, Pendeen and St. Ives. As I mentioned previously, some research had indicated that actually April was rather a quiet time down there and it more comes into its own in the autumn but even so there was always going to be something of interest to see. To add some motivation, a male woodchat shrike had been down there at Church Cove, near the southern tip of the Lizard peninsula for over a week and I was really hoping that it might stay until we got down there.

The drive down there was uneventful; we stopped off at Tintagel en route where nesting fulmars were noted, a dozen razorbills were loafing out at sea and a peregrine was seen soaring high over the town. We were staying in a converted mill house in Penberth, which is the first of the series of valleys around Lands End. The other valleys read like a roll call of famous birding locations: Porthcurno, Porthgwarra, Nanjizal, Land's End, Nanquidno and Cot Valley all within a short drive of where we were staying. I'd changed my Bird Guides subscription to pick up just Cornwall and I didn't even want to know what I might be missing back home whilst I was away as otherwise the gripp-off would spoil the holiday. Friday evening I walked up the hill to where I could get a phone signal (it was that remote) and sure enough the woodchat shrike had still been there that day. So the next morning I got up at 5:45am and was out the door just before 6am. It was just starting to get light as I headed off and I saw a tawny owl fly over the road ahead of me, presumably heading back to roost for the day. I arrived at Church Cove at around 6:50am and was in position just before 7am, staring at the patch of gorse where the shrike had been hanging out. After a short period I noticed the bird, actually in a small tree very close by and I managed a quick bit of video at very close range. The bird soon disappeared and I waited patiently for another view. During this time I was joined by another birder and a short while later it re-appeared in the same tree before flying out to the gorse bushes opposite us where it would show from time to time. After a while I headed back to Penberth but en route I got a text that a hoopoe had been seen the previous day at Polgigga, which was just a few minutes further on from Penberth. I headed over there where I happened to bump into a local birder whose patch Polgigga was and who'd found the bird the day before. Apparently it had been seen in the lane that heads out to the moor but was rather elusive. When we got to the appropriate spot there turned out to be several other birders about and the hoopoe was nowhere to be seen so I turned around and headed back to the cottage.

Woodchat Shrike. These shots were by far the best of the bunch. They are videograbs of a few seconds worth of footage when the bird was very close in the tree.

Apart from that one twitch, there was nothing else of particular note around in the area whilst we were there. The hoopoe was seen once more a few days later and I made another attempt on it without any joy. A great white egret was seen a couple of times at Marazion Marsh though I didn't bother trying for it. With nothing specific to go for, I would get up early and get in a couple of hours birding in the morning before we headed out for the day. I went to Porthgwarra one morning to look around and I managed a short time sea-watching from the famous Gwennap Head. I also did a couple of walks along the coast from Penberth to see what was about. On a typical coastal walk one would see linnets, dunnocks and chaffinches and corvids as the stock birds. Where it was moorland terrain then wheatears and meadow pipits were to be encountered. Interestingly I only once saw a stonechat the whole time I was there which was very unusual.

There were lots of linnets about on the moorland

Even the meadow pipits look rather colourful at this time of year

Buzzards were to be seen everywhere, here's one at Porthgwarra

During the day I'd always have my bins with me and it was a question of taking advantage of opportunities when they presented themselves. When we went to St. Ives for the day, my VLW and the girls wanted to go shopping so I took L around to the island where there was a rather stiff breeze blowing towards the shore. We found a sheltered spot and L soon fell asleep whilst I passed a very pleasant hour and a half sea-watching. I only had my bins but the birds were coming in rather close and several times there was a flock of around fifty manx shearwaters close to where I was sitting, diving away for fish. Another time my eldest daughter wanted to buy something that she'd seen from a shop in Marazion so I dropped her off and found somewhere to park overlooking the bay. During the twenty minutes we were waiting I managed to find a great northern diver which was fishing quite close in to the shore. Yet another time my VLW and the girls wanted to shop in Penzance so I said I'd take L to look at the ships in the harbour. As it was high tide we first of all stopped off by Jubilee Pool where purple sandpipers were known to roost at high tide. Sure enough there they were, just a few yards away on the rocks. By leaning over the sea wall I managed to find quite a few more which were actually roosting in the cracks in the wall and I reckoned that there were at least 35 in total together with a similar number of turnstones.

The turnstones and purple sandpipers roosting on the rocks

Purple Sandpiper. This shot was digiscoped but because of the angle
involved I had to hold the scope in my hand rather than on the tripod.

This colourful littoralis rock pipit on Portheras Beach came close enough for me to take a reasonable shot with my P&S camera.

This obliging chiffchaff at Polgigga was very docile - perhaps it had just flown in and was exhausted

On a walk along the coast from Penberth to Porthcurno I heard a familiar call and looked round to find a chough flying close to us along the cliff. A short while later a pair of them appeared again though they moved on before I could get a record shot. On a walk down to Nanjizal beach we got great views of a female merlin which flew up from the gorse and headed up the valley. Whilst hanging around on Marazion beach a flock of waders flew in which turned out to consist of dunlin, sanderling and some ringed plover. A pair of ravens were frequently to be seen flying overhead in Penberth Valley. Chiffchaffs, willow warblers and blackcaps were the only warblers that had arrived yet but were to be found in reasonable numbers in the appropriate locations. All in all I managed to see some nice birds whilst doing family stuff.