Saturday 6th October: Davidstow, Hayle & Land's End

Well, finally I'm back in my beloved Cornwall. Earlier this year my VLW had come down sans moi with some of her family to the cottage for a week whilst I held the fort back home and looked after the children. This massive earning of brownie points resulted in me having dibs on a week down in the cottage myself whilst she did the family duties back home. After careful consideration (see previous posting) I decided on the second week in October for my visit and so here I am. In the run up to coming down I've been following the birding news here even more keenly than usual though it seems so far to have been a very quiet autumn. I can usually tell how good things are by how gripped off from afar I am and so far I have remained remarkably unperturbed back in Oxford. Sure, there have been a few Pecs & Buff-breasts, the Marazion Spotted Crakes would have been a Cornish tick for me, the Newquay Alpine Swift would have been very tickable though I wouldn't have seen the Elenora's Falcon even had I been here but there'd not been anything really crippling to give me pangs of grippage in Oxford. In fact in the week leading up to my visit I was starting to realise that it might end up being a very quiet time down there so mentally I've been reducing  my expectations somewhat. Nevertheless, anything could turn up and things suddenly picked up with the arrival of 7 Red-rumped Swallows at Marazion the day before my arrival (why not one day later?) so there is everything to play for.

I intended to set off from Oxford at my usual time of around 9am though last minute helping of my daughters with their physics and maths homework meant that I departed a little later than intended. There'd not been anything really exciting to catch my eye on the way down and with the Red-rumps having been reported still first thing this morning I was toying with the idea of headed straight down in order to try and catch up with them. However by late morning they were "no further sign" so I decided to stop of at Davidstow to pay my respects to the long-staying Buff-breasted Sandpiper there. I was half way along the A395 when David Parker called to say that a couple of Red-rumped Swallows had been seen at Swingates at Land's End. I hummed and harred about this but in the end decided to carry on as I was more than an hour from there still and twitching swallows is rather haphazard at the best of times.

I arrived at the airfield and decided, based on past experience, to start by seeing if anyone else had found the bird before embarking on the Davidstow curb-crawl of despair myself. It didn't take long to find a group of birders staked out in front of one of the many pools and sure enough there was the Sandpiper close by, looking completely unperturbed by its admirers. In this situation, with a relatively static bird at close quarters with good light behind me, I opted for the digiscoping option for my photographic efforts. They're never going to be as good as a proper SLR but they're not too bad. As well as the Sandpiper there was another small wader nearby though it was hunkered down with it's head tucked under its wing the whole time so it was very difficult to see what it was though I would have guessed Dunlin if pushed rather than Curlew Sandpiper (which had been reported with the Buff-breast for while now).

After spending a while with the lovely Sandpiper and after a flying visit to Crowdy Reservoir to see if I could luck in on a fly-over Crossbill in the plantation (no I couldn't), I headed back to the A30 and continued on my journey to the Penwith Peninsula, arriving mid afternoon. A quick stop-off at the Hayle estuary first found the Saltings to be remarkably devoid of waders with just a couple of Barwits and a single Redshank on show. There were the usual Wigeon, Teal, Gulls and Curlew around and someone who seemed to be taking a few people on a birding tour mentioned that he thought that he'd seen a Garganey there as well swimming in the river but to my eyes they were all Teal. 

After that I decided to head straight over to Land's End just on the off-chance that the Red-rumps were still about. I wasn't really holding out much hope but the only other birds of note on RBA were a couple of flocks of highly mobile Glossy Ibises which were being reported from various locations so I thought that I might as well check out Land's End as anywhere else. There I met up with Paul St. Pierre but there was very little of note there apart from an Emperor Dragonfly, a few Swallows, a Grey Heron and a Sparrowhawk. I also nipped into Treave Moor but again there was nothing of note apart from lots of Mipits.

I was starting to get tired now so I headed back to Penzance to buy some food and then made my way over to the cottage to get settled in. I wonder what this week will bring.

Just How Bad is July?

Back home in Oxford from my recent trip to Cornwall I was reflecting on my trip and what I'd seen and how little that was. Of course this was entirely to be expected, it being July but just how do the months compare? I'd done some analysis on this subject for Oxfordshire a while back on my Oxon blog using Bird Guides. Using "Scarce or better" as the rarity criteria and using "first records only" to avoid multiple records of the same bird you can simply count how many records turn up for each month for "Cornwall only". Incidentally, I used BirdGuides rather than RBA because the latter doesn't have "first records only" and nor does it have "all records for July" in it's search which means that you have to do it year by year specifying the actual dates. For rarity-rich months such as October you need to do it month by month even for Bird Guides as they have a 200 record limit for a single query. This method is not fool-proof as blindy just counting records will include things like negative reports etc but as a method of comparison between months it should all come out in the wash.

First Record Scarce,+ for Cornwall Month by Month Since 2001

No great surprises there in terms of which months are the best though it's nice to be able to put some numbers to these things. For example it's interesting to know that September and October are more than twice as good as May. I've included reports from the years 2001 to 2011 so 11 year's worth. By dividing by 11 you get the number of Scarce+ records you might expect in a given month on average, a stonking 63 for October!

There is actually one good practical use for this approach: I'm planning on coming down in October sans famille for a week of dedicated birding and I was wondering which week would be the best. Using the same approach on a week by week basis one can come up with the relative merits of each 7 day period in October.

First Record Scarce+ Records for 7 Day Periods in October

So you can see that they're all pretty good but the second weeks is the best so perhaps I'll aim for that one.

In conclusion, if it's scarce or better birds that you're after then these tables show you the months or weeks to aim for. Don't get me wrong, I very much enjoyed my week in July but I also like seeing a nice bit of "rare" so expect me back in the peak autumn months.

Saturday 28th July - Homeward Bound

It was a rush job to pack and leave the cottage by 10 am this morning but somehow we managed it. I did happen to notice a Greater Spotted Woodpecker working its way along the telegraph poles by the road from the lighthouse as we drove off: not such a common bird around here. 

We decided to stop off at Falmouth on the way home for a look around but there was nothing of note on the wildlife front and our journey back home was largely uneventful though I was tired enough driving back to have to stop in a service station for a thirty minute "power-nap", not something that I've had to do before. It was surprisingly effective and I felt completely refreshed for the rest of the journey.

So it's been a pretty quiet week down in my beloved Cornwall as expected but then that's July for you. Fortunately, with my new-found interest in moths there was always something of interest to see and photograph and I've managed to learn about quite a few new species. Next time I hope to bring a trap down with me though the Active Mothing was rather fun! On the birding front, things will no doubt start to pick up now that August is virtually upon us and I will once more be gripped off back in Oxford. I hope to be able to pop down for a couple of impromptu visits during the next couple of months though as the cottage is more or less completely booked up I'll have to find somewhere else to stay.

Until the next time!

 

A Dingy Footman...

 

...and a ridiculously tame St. Ives seal

Friday 27th July: Pendeen & St. Ives

Today was supposed to be a windier day and with the direction forecast as North-westerly I thought that I'd get up early and would give it a couple of house sea-watching down at the Watch. I arrived at about 7:30 where I was soon joined by Colin Moore (who works Nanquidno as his local patch) and then by Dave Parker. The sea-watching was frankly piss poor and in a ten minute sample I reckon that the hourly manxie rate was under 100 per hour. Still the three of us had a good natter about birding etc and I passed an enjoyable couple of hours in their company.

The family activity for the day was a trip to St Ives. Whilst I find the town very pretty indeed, personally I'm not a great fan of the huge crows though the girls all wanted to go shopping and our six-year old son L wanted to go crabbing with his new crab line that he had been given so he and I went off to the pier whilst the others hit the shops. There were a couple of very tame seals down by the harbour wall - I'd read before about them but had not actually seen them before. We managed to "catch" a couple of crabs including one really big one though they dropped off before we could actually get them up the steep and sloping pier walls. Still we were only going to put them back anyway so it didn't really matter and L enjoyed himself. Afterwards, whilst the others went off for tea I passed half an hour sea-watching on the island where there was just a light passage of manxies going by. The only other bird news of note was 4 Sandwich Terns at Lelant Saltings where we caught the Park & Ride train.

There was only some light mothing that evening as we were packing up to leave and there was also the Olympic opening ceremony to watch.

Close-up Dunnock

 Flame Shoulder

 L found this Marbled Coronet in his shuttlecock in the morning

Thursday 26th July: Pendeen & Men an Tol

Yet another glorious day of sunshine on another lazy day today. This morning around Pendeen I first heard and then managed to track down a Lesser Redpoll that was calling away noisily not far from the cottage. They're not that common a species down on the peninsula though I have seen them before. We decided to head off to the moors today for a stroll up to the ancient stones at Men an Tol which the rest of the family had not seen before. There was not much to report apart from another heard-only flyover Lesser Redpoll and a distant calling Raven. Afterwards we stopped for tea at Morvah where we got talking to a lady on a walking tour. She turned out to be from Oxford and taught at one of the local schools with one of her colleagues being the mother of a school friend of my younger daughter - what a small world! We gave her a lift back to Pendeen to her next camp site. Back home, the two Chough were calling again by the light house and my younger daughter managed to catch a Painted Lady in the garden.

Painted Lady, caught by Daughter 2

 Another Inrgrailed Clay - these seem to be rather common around the cottage

A Shaded Broad-bar was a new addition to the cottage moth list

Wednesday 25th July Pendeen

With an even hotter day today and little wind, we elected to have an even more lazy day today, not even attempting to leave Pendeen. In the morning whilst the rest of the family mooched around the cottage I went for a walk to my usual butterfly spot where I found more Silver-studs, Grayling, another Brown Silver-line moth, several Six-spotted Burnets and a Common Blue. I also spotted a Sand Martin and a total of six Swifts all working their way up the coast.

 Six-spot Burnet

 Brown Silver-line

 Grayling

Stonechat

Back at the cottage mid-mornig I spotted a pod of about a dozen or so Dolphins (or at least that;'s what I assume they were) working their way past the Watch at a close distance. We watched them from our garden as they went past and I took some record shots with the super-zoom camera. They're not up to much photographically I'm afraid.

We decided to spend the afternoon at Portheras beach where I even braved the water though it was rather chilly. Suddenly at around 5pm it clouded over and then the usual Pendeen fog descended, leaving the cottage fog-bound and everything deliciously quiet. That evening my VLW's niece, who lives up the coast near St. Agnes, came over for dinner and then we went to the Radjel Inn for their pub quiz. Back at the cottage I turned on the moth light though I wasn't expecting anything given the fog. It turns out though that foggy conditions are especially good for moths. I'm guessing they can't see anything else and so are drawn to the bright light. There were soon dozen of moths all fluttering around the patio area and I busied myself with identifying them and photographing the interesting ones.

 Dot Moth (thanks to John Swann for the ID correction)

 Peach Blossom

Peppered Moth

Tuesday 24th July Pendeen

Another glorious day of sunshine, the hottest day of the year. First thing this morning I went down to the Watch for a sea-watch for about an hour though the only thing I saw was Basking Shark and a steady passage of Manx Shearwaters (700+ in the hour that I was there).

I managed to digiscope this young buzzard which was

 loafing around on the cliffs near the lighthouse.

Some rather vingetted digiscoped footage of the Basking Shark

As a family we seem to have slipped into a very lazy and relaxed routine, doing remarkably little which is very nice. This morning we went down to the "secret cove" to go for a swim though it turned out that the tide was too low for it to be very appealing (or safe) for swimming. Still, whilst there as well as the Silver-studded Blues I managed to find several Grayling on the hillside and a Brown Silver-line moth skulking in the bracken.

 

A Grayling

In the afternoon we needed to go to Penzance to get some food so decided to nip over the causeway to St Michael's Mount for a cream tea in the Sailloft restaurant - very nice! 

 There are several young Stonechats around the cottage at Pendeen

 Once it got dark there was more Active Mothing. My moth ID'ing abilities are still very much in their infancy but thanks to things like BirdForum and iSpot I'm learning fast. By now I'm starting to get familiar with the species around here and many of them are ones that we've already caught before though there were a few new ones tonight.

 Dark Arches

 Early Thorn

 Another huge beast - this time a Ghost Moth