2nd January & 2012 Retrospective

The next day was taken up with packing and stopping off to catch up with my VLW's niece who lives "up-county" so there wasn't any time for the Torpoint Green-winged Teal, nor the Black Guillemot that had been reported in Carbis Bay.

Given that it's the start of a new year I thought that it was only fitting that I reflect back on the past year's birding. From a personal point of view it's been a reasonably quiet year for my birding in Cornwall, largely due to the fact that the cottage is now let out during the holiday season. Two trips in particular stand out. In March I managed to find a first winter Night Heron of my own rather than the adult bird that everyone else had seen at Kenidjack. There was also a lovely Hoopoe at the Brew Pool and the Blue-winged Teal at Walmsley. The highlight of the year was a week of solid birding in October - it was pure bliss not to have to worry about fitting birding around family commitments. The highlights of that trip were the Olive-backed Pipit on my doorstep and the wonderfully showy Paddyfield Warbler at Church Cove.

Brew Pool Hoopoe

Church Cove Paddyfield Warbler

Pendeen Olive-backed Pipit (c) B. Rankine

One thing that I've enjoyed is working on my Cornish list - it gives me something to go for even out of season when I come down. Had I been on my own this time I would have had a go for the Torpoint Green-winged Teal, the Short-eared Owls at Men-an-Tol and the Black Guillemot at Carbis Bay but unfortunately I wasn't able to this time. Still I had one good day's birding and seeing the Sub-alpine Warbler so easily was a real bonus. I'm hoping to come down again fairly soon as the cottage still needs some weather-proofing. With any lucky I'll have a chance to chase down some more Cornish ticks then.

1st January: Pendeen

It rained for much of the day yesterday so I wasn't able to get out for more than a brief walk where a Stonechat was the only highlight. In the afternoon we had a wander around Penzance and visited Morrab Gardens where a Blackcap and a Grey Wagtail were the only birds of note.

We decided to see the New Year in in style, first going to the Star at St Just where we'd heard there would be a DJ though in the end it was too crowded for any dancing. Next on to the Radjel in Pendeen for a drink and the girls had a game of pool. After that we headed over to Marazion to count down to the New Year on the beach and to watch the various fireworks going off in Penzance and Marazion. Finally back to the cottage to open the champagne and to discuss the year past and the year ahead.

The cross on the top of St. Michael's Mount from the beach at midnight

This morning there was a nice north westerly wind and it was quite sunny so I thought that I'd pop down to the Watch for an hour's session. There was quite a lot of movement close in with a good passage of auks and kittiwakes - at one stage they were passing at a rate of about 100 birds per minute. The highlight was a couple of Balearic Shearwaters, one on the sea and one passing through.

In the afternoon we headed over to St Ives so the girls could do some shopping. The boys went for a walk around the island instead. On the sea there was the same steady passage of auks and kittiwakes but nothing of note.

St . Ives Island

30th December: St Just, Kenidjack & Newlyn

I'm back down in Cornwall to see the New Year in with my family. It was a bit of a last minute decision but we did it last year so there are the seeds of a new tradition emerging. The weather forecast wasn't that great but we thought that we'd give it a go anyway. Normally when I'm travelling on my own I like to leave nice and early but with the inertia of the whole family to deal with it took ages to get ready to go. A detour to buy some food for the journey and the need to buy some new car windscreen wipers meant that we didn't actually leave Oxford until 12:30 and the usual heavier Saturday traffic on the way down meant that we didn't arrive until well after dark some five hours later. I'd tentatively suggested that perhaps we might like to stop off en route to look at a Green-winged Teal near Torpoint but for some reason the rest of the family weren't interested. It was blowing a howling gale at the cottage when we finally arrived but with some warm food inside us we soon settled in.

Sunday had the best forecast for the next few days so I thought that I'd take the opportunity to check out the local birds of interest. Not that there was much of particular note about but there was an over-wintering Sub-alpine Warbler at St. Just, a Black-necked Grebe in Newlyn harbour and a Ring-billed Gull had been reported along the sea-front at Penzance between Jubilee Pool and Wherrytown. I didn't feel motivated to get up particularly early for these birds and instead had a nice lie in. At around 10 o'clock with my two daughters wanting to do some revision for their forthcoming exams and my VLW and her brother happily chatting away I thought that I'd nip out to do some shopping in St Just where I could at the same time have a look for the Sub-alp. As I drove away from the cottage I had a lovely view of a large Peregrine that flew low past the car.

I was just setting off from the main car park at St Just when I bumped into a couple of local birders whom I'd met before but whose names I didn't know. They knew where to go for the Warbler and kindly showed me the way. As we walked down they informed me that it was a very difficult bird to see: one of them had seen it once for 5 seconds, the other chap hadn't seen it at all in seven visits totalling about 10 hours of searching. I began to reasses my chances of seeing this bird - I already had it for the county anyway so it wasn't that urgent but this was sounding like a needle in a haystack job. It turned out that there were two main areas to search: the back gardens of Princess Street and the front gardens of the next road. My two guides kindly walked around the circuit for me pointing out all the hot spots. One of these was the back garden of a local birder where it was most often see because it was the most closely watched but on our circuit there was no sign of it at all. My two companions seemed happy enough with this one lap and walked off whilst I decided to give it half an hour on my own. I walked slowly down the back of Princess Street peering into all the likely spots though it seemed a pretty hopeless task. I just arrived at the local birder's garden when I saw something moving in the tree that hung out of the back of the garden. A second or two later I got a proper view and blow me if it wasn't the Sub-alpine Warbler itself. It was a cute little thing, looking pretty much like a whitethroat though with a pinkish flush from below its white throat extending down all the underparts, with rather plain grey-brown upper parts. There was a slightly scruffy air to it, presumably because of it being a first winter. It sat there happily in the tree whilst I scrabbled for my camera but before I could even get it out it of the case it slipped off into the garden. Amazing! Since I'd left my two guides it had been no more than a few minutes, a great piece of luck given how long others had tried to see it. I didn't bother hanging around after that but walked back into St Just to do the shopping before heading back. 

 The back gardens of Princess Street - not your typical Sub-alpine

 habitat but it was nicely sheltered from the wind

On the way home I nipped into Kenidjack to check up on the reported Siberian Chiffchaff that had been hanging around the sewage works. There I met up with my two companions from earlier to whom I relayed my good news regarding the Sub-alp. The poor chap who'd still not seen it was remarkably gracious despite the monster grip-off. The Sibe Chiffy was easy to find as it was feeding actively around the settling pool with three normal Chiffies. I spent some time trying to photograph them though they were very mobile and I had to shoot them through the wire fencing. After a while I decided that I had to get back to the cottage and headed home.

 

Chiffies - the Sibe above and a normal below

After a hearty lunch we all decided to head off for an outing. Given the strong winds were blowing from the south-west we decided to head over to the other side of the peninsula where it should be more sheltered. Some of our party wanted to go shopping in Penzance and the rest of us decided to have a wander around Newlyn harbour. We parked at Tolcarne beach where I met up with Brian Field who'd come looking for the reported Ring-billed Gull. We had a good look around though there were only a couple of adult Common Gulls around and a sub-adult Herring Gull with a rather ringed bill. Two adult Mediterranean Gulls were loafing around with the Black-headed Gulls but that was about it.

 Common Gull

 Med Gull

After a while we headed over to the harbour where the rest of the party borrowed my cameras and set about photographing the various boats whilst I had a look at the birds with Brian and a couple of other birders who were down from Newquay for the day. We soon came across two juvenile Great Northern Divers which were showing very nicely close in near some of the moored ships. Further in the harbour we found another Great Northern Diver and finally the Black-necked Grebe itself. Brian got a text from Mush saying that yesterday's Ring-billed Gull had been re-identified from photographs as just a Common Gull so at least I didn't need to worry about trying to find it,

Great Northern Divers and the Black-necked Grebe

By this time the others had had enough so we headed back to the car and rendezvous'd with the shopping party  in a café for some brownies and hot chocolate. After this we nipped over to Marazion in the last gasps of daylight to walk along the beach to the playground. There we messed around on the zip wire in the dark for a while before heading back to the cottage. It had been a very successful day and I'd managed to catch up with some nice local birds.

Retrospective

Once I'm back home I always like to reflect back on my Cornish trips, to savour once more all the highlights and to ponder whether I might have done anything differently for the low points.

The first observation is that Cornwall seems to be having a rather quiet autumn so far. Sure, there's been the usual autumn birds turning up but, to me at least, not in the usual numbers.Talking to some of the visiting birders who'd been down there for several weeks such as Lewis Thomson, he'd said that the previous week was very quiet. It seems therefore that I did happen to jam in on a brief purple patch lasting a few days though this actually kicked off the day before I arrived with the 7 Red-rumped Swallows which annoyingly didn't hang around for me. On the Saturday a total of 15 Glossy Ibis turned up with at least a few of them staying all week. On the Monday there was of course the White's Thrush and the Paddyfield Warbler, the latter staying for a while. Tuesday saw the arrival of the Olive-backed Pipit and a Great White Egret. Wednesday brought in an Ortoland Bunting and Thursday was the first of quite a few (mostly heard-only) Red-throated Pipit records. So all in all there was quite an influx of good birds during my week. There were also long-stayers which hung around such as the Davidstow Buff-breasted Sandpiper and the Housel Bay Red-backed Shrike. 

So, let's get down to some good old-fashioned lists 

Scarce & Rare Birds Seen
Buff-breasted Sandpiper
Glossy Ibis
Paddyfield Warbler *
Olive-backed Pipit *
Red-backed Shrike
Yellow-browed Warbler

Davidstow Buff-breasted Sandipiper

Supporing Cast
Common Redstart
Pied Flycatcher
Firecrest
Hooded Crow *
Sooty Shearwater
Balearic Shearwater
Pomarine Skua

* = Cornish tick

So all in all, not a huge list but I'm very pleased with my three shiny new Cornish ticks which pulls me comfortably clear of my pathetic Oxon list once more. Two of those birds (the Pipit and the Warbler) were new "champagne" birds for me - I think that I may have set a rather dangerous precedent there which could prove expensive in years to come! It was nice to get in a bit of sea watching and made me realise just how little I've done of it this year - in fact Arctic Skua was a year tick for me! I still have a love-hate relationship with sea-watching: I love doing it and gaining more experience all the time but I do still struggle with ID'ing some of these birds at great distance. After having spent a lot of time watching video's of skuas on youTube I do feel that I'm finally getting to grips with them but I still managed to mis-call some (admittedly rather distant) Kittiwakes as Terns before they came close enough for me to realise my mistake. So there's still plenty to learn.

Pendeen Pied Flycatcher

This time there was the added dimension of proper moth trapping. I had two sessions, one trapping 50 moths of 13 species and the second 70 moths of 16. These counts are far better than the paltry numbers I get in my urban Oxford garden so from that point of view it was a great success. Below is a list of the species trapped or seen with the first four being migrants:

Silver Y
Pearly Underwing
Dark Sword Grass
Rush Veneer
Lunar Underwing
Black Rustic
Feathered Ranunculus
Large Ranunculus
Setaceous Hebrew Character
Square-spot Rustic
Autumnal Rustic
Frosted Orange
Turnip Moth
Angled Shades
Large Yellow Underwing
Small Wainscot
Common Marbled Carpet
Buff Footman
Light Brown Apple Moth
Eudonia angustea
Celypha lacunana
Fox Moth (caterpillar)

Black Rustic

One additional aspect which I am starting to appreciate is getting to know the regular visitors to Cornwall. I know many of the local birders already and as always appreciated timely texts & calls from David Parker and John Swann but there are a number of people such as myself who come down frequently, often in the autumn whom I've had pleasure of birding with this time. These include Ian Kendall (who regularly does Pendeen & who found the OBP), Roger Carrington, Lewis Thomson and Phil & Hilary (though they're becoming "locals" in March next year).

Bird of the trip this time is a joint prize won by the wonderfully confiding Paddyfield Warbler and the Olive-backed Pipit on my home patch at Pendeen. Dip of the trip I think goes to the annoying Ortoland Bunting that eluded me despite hours of tramping around stubble fields.

Pendeen Olive-backed Pipit (c) B. Rankine -
this was taken towards the end of the week when most people had
 lost interest in the bird. Apparently it was sitting up beautifully
 on the gorse near the pool where it was originally found

So all in all a great success and I'm already thinking about booking a week next year at the cottage again.

Portrait of a Twitch

My brother-in-law David is not a birder at all. He's a keen photographer but is more interested in portraiture than wildlife. I was a bit worried that he might get bored when I dragged him off on some of my birding expeditions but as long as he had his camera with him there was always something for him to do. Below are some photos that he took of the Olive-backed Pipit twitch near the cottage at Pendeen. If you look carefully you'll spot John Chapple, myself, Phil & Hiliary, Gavin Haig and Lee Evans in amongst the crowd - most of them you can click to enlarge.

All (c) David Ryan

Saturday 13th October: Pendeen & Hayle

I woke up (at a reasonable hour - thankfully my normal sleeping pattern has been restored over the last couple of days) and had to get on with packing and leaving as the cleaners were coming to prepare for some paying guests for next week. By a little after nine I was out of the cottage and wondering what places to stop off at on the way home. Viv Stratton had found a couple of Ring Ouzels at Buttermilk Hill yesterday so I was thinking of checking in there to see if they were still about. I didn't really have time to do the full Pendeen rounds but as I had some re-cycling to drop off by the store I thought that I'd at least check out the copse to see if my Pied Flycatcher was still about. There I met up with John Swann, a visiting birder from Manchester and also Viv Stratton and a lady photographer, all with a keen interest in the copse. It turned out that the visiting birder had found an "Irish" Coal Tit there yesterday - apparently they have yellowish cheeks and there'd been a few on Scilly in the last few days. We hung around a while and I managed to re-find the Flycatcher but there was no sign of the Tit. I thought back to the Coal Tit that I'd found in the churchyard the other day but I'd checked that carefully to see if it was a continental one and it had looked absolutely bog-standard to me. Viv mentioned that the Ouzels had gone from Buttermilk Hill so that at least saved me having to check up on them.

My Pendeen Pied Flycatcher posed well in the sunlight this morning

Next item on the journey home was a brief stop-off at Hayle where there were still remarkably few waders: I could only find a single Bar-tailed Godwit and a handful of Redshank. I checked my RBA text messages to see if there was anything to keep me in Cornwall a while longer: a Corncrake at Porthgwarra was no doubt un-twitchable and there was nothing else of note so I pointed the Gnome-mobile up the A30 and headed off.

Hayle Estuary Curlew

There'd been remarkably little of interest en route to tempt me and the only thing that I could come up with was a Richards Pipit at Budleigh Salterton in Devon which was fortunately just a little way off the M5 so wouldn't be too much of a detour. It was reported as being in a field of long grass near the mouth of the River Otter. Some quarter of an hour off the motorway I duly found the field with no sign of any large pipits. A few other birders turned up and we wandered along the coast path a little way but to no avail. After a while I admitted defeat and headed back to the car with "a nice walk" the best that I could salvage from my detour. The rest of my journey was uneventful and I arrived back to my VLW and our lovely children early evening, tired but content with what had been a most enjoyable week in my favourite part of the country.

Friday 12th October: Pendeen, Sennen & Land's End

There's no denying that things have got quiet again. After the flurry of good birds that fortunately coincided with my arrival last Saturday, as the week has progressed there's been little of note around. Not that I was complaining in particular: I was pleased to have seen the good stuff earlier on, but it meant that it was harder to decide where to bird with no obvious targets to chase. Today when I looked out of the window first thing, there still seemed to be a good wind, just west of north-westerly so I naturally starting thinking of Pendeen again. I had some minor decorating chores to do first but once I'd done them I wandered down to the Watch to see what was about. Unfortunately, in that short time the wind had dropped significantly and I arrived to find a few birders who reported that hardly anything was going through. I put in a token half an hour during which time a Bonxie, 3 Common Scoter and a couple of Shearwaters was all that I could muster.

After that it was a question of deciding where to bird. I started with my local "patch" at Pendeen: Calartha copse held 3 Goldcrest and 1 Chiffy; the Boscaswell stores copse had the Pied Flycatcher still as well as 2 Goldcrest and 2 Chiffies and the churchyard had a single (normal) Coal Tit.

Pendeen Pied Fly

After that I decided that I didn't fancy yet more valley birding and those areas would be well covered by others anyway. Instead I elected to explore some of the areas I was less familiar with. I started off over towards Sennen with the footpath between Escalls Chapel and Trevorian Farm, walking over to Trevear Farm and back again. Plenty of Mipits, Skylarks, one Snipe and a Wheatear on the farm building were all I could muster.

Next over to Brew Pool, where there was no sign of the Glossy Ibis that had been reported earlier. I walked up to the pool and had a wander around but there was nothing of note. I picked up a sandwich in Sennen and then drove on to the Land's End area. A wander around Treave Moor found 1 Buzzard, 1 Sparrowhawk and a few Linnets. I did spot a small rusty-brown moth fluttering around which I wondered if it might be a migrant Rusty-dot Pearl but unfortunately it never settled.

Treave Moor Robin _ I took this because of the contrast between the 

lead grey sky and the brightness of the robin

 

At Land's End I wandered along the cycle track seeing only 1 Kestrel and a Dunnock for my troubles and I got a good soaking to boot in a real cloud-burst though thankfully it quickly subsided. Below the car park I found 3 Chough, and a handful of Chiffies. It was all very hard work for no rewards. By now the latest rain shower was starting to look more threatening so I headed back to the car and drove to the Little Apple Café in Trevescan, gaining its shelter just before the heavens opened once more with a proper thunderstorm. I enjoyed a hot chocolate, some cake and a chat with the proprietor inside whilst the rain rattled down on the roof. Eventually, it eased enough for me to run back to the car and drive back home.

 

 

 Land's End Wildlife

 I was back at the cottage, thinking about what to have for dinner when an RBA text came through reporting some Firecrests at Penberth and St. Levan. However, tacked onto the end of it was "a Stint sp. at Marazion at the mouth of the Red-River". I called Dave Parker who knew nothing about it. As it was close to getting dark I realised that I couldn't wait for him to check it out but instead would have to drive over so off I sped. We rendez-vous'd by the estuary but the only thing we could come up with was a 1w Common Gull by the river mouth and a couple of Barwits over by the Godolphin hotel. Oh well - you've got to check these things out. I went back home, did some more decorating chores and started packing for my departure tomorrow. It had been a day of little reward on the bird front though I'd enjoyed exploring some different areas in more detail.

Marazion sunset