5th August:
An extended birding/social trip combining birding Cornwall
while Adrian W was on his two Pelagics and allowing me to catch up with the
lovely Loo in St Agnes.
The drive down was enlivened by a stop at Haldon Forest
where the male Honey Buzzard soared over our heads displaying in their
characteristic way. Stithians Reservoir next and we promptly found the randy
male Pied Billed Grebe dozing while his Little Grebe wife sat on their second
clutch. He still had a nice black bib.
A quick scan round located two of the curious first brood
offspring. Weird Grebelets with huge ivory bills, like daggers and not sort and
stout like their father. They had the stripy heads that young Grebes have but a
spiky Pied Billed tail. The male
eventually went and relieved the female Little from the nest.
A Green Sand twittered but there was nothing else of note
here. The last stop before offloading Adrian at Newquay was the Hayle were
typically two Little Egrets obliged.
6th August:
A day spent showing Loo around Cornwall – and she lives and
is from there. Little in the way of birds other than one of the Hayle Little
Egrets and a Peregrine.
7th August:
I picked up Adrian from his first trip at 7am and off we
went to Porthgwarra after some breakfast and birding news. It was boringly quiet and we soon left with
only a Great Skua worthy of comment. Two more Little Egrets were seen at Drift
but that Squacco still eluded us. I left Adrian at 5pm to embark on his second
trip.
8th August:
I was awoken at 7.15am by the sound
of Adrian’s pager (not much use on a boat!) going off – Aquatic Warbler and
Spot Crake at Marazion Marsh. It was blowing a gale and looked miserable
outside and thus I dozed back off till when it said ‘showing well’ I dragged
myself up and headed out. It only took twenty minutes to see this streaky
fellow and another thirty before first rate, full in the open views were
obtained. A really yellowy individual which hopped around on the cut reed stems
like a funny Dunnock.
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| Aquatic Warbler |
A walk on the beach only produced a few Sandwich and Arctic Terns and two Whimbrel so I headed to ‘Gwarra but it was once again birdless so I did some climbing on the boulders on the beach before heading back to Loos van.
9th August:
Up early again after an eventful evening and I felt like
death warmed up by the time I got down to Penzance. There was no sign of the
Chalice at Newquay or Penzance so I tried to kip in the car while the raging
force seven easterly sent huge waves crashing over the harbour walls. The Chalice eventually came in and Adrian and
the crew did not look too good. They had
only seen a couple of Wilson’s Petrels for their efforts. With the weather completely wrong for
seawatching we opted to try Marazion and to my amazement we soon found an
Aquatic Warbler. A darker, less well narked bird than the one yesterday. Black
tailed Skimmers and Oak Eggar moths were being blown by!
Rather bizarrely I decided at that point that we should go home via Sandwich Bay in Kent where a Lesser Grey Shrike had been found. It was a long drive but it showed very well despite the windy conditions. A fitting way to end an 1100 mile trip.
[Eds:
Sometimes I really do wonder what I was like back then!].
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| Lesser Grey Shrike |
13th August:
I swore that I would never twitch Eire on the simply grounds
that it is a separate country – not part of the UK and I have always found it
strange that the list was ‘Great Britain and Eire’ but I gave in to pressure
from Adrian [Eds: sorry, can’t remember which one!] and Mike S and joined them
on an inexpensive day trip to Tacumshin.
The predominately in the dark ferry from Fishguard to Rosslare
was enlivened by lots of Manx Shearwaters and a sun inhibited adult sum plum
Sabine’s Gull.
Once ashore we joined two Welsh lads and hired a taxi to
take us the eight miles to Tacumshin where hopefully the adult Sharp-tailed
Sandpiper would be waiting for us. The
site was amazing; a huge flat watery, muddy expanse with three reedy inlets.
There were literally thousands of waders but it was actually the fact that I
found an adult Spotted Crake within the first ten minutes that caused a stir as
it fed with up to ten Water Rails along the reedy edges. It was a tick for all
the Irish birders present and the first twitchable in the country since 1990!
With no sign of the Sandpiper we resorted to removing our shoes
and socks and circumnavigating the area with muddy feet. Even then we could not
find it and over the next eight hours we amassed a good selection of species
but not the quarry. We knew it was there
as the Welsh lads had seen it within an hour of arriving but lost it quickly.
Regardless we plodded on and after two complete 1.5mile
circuits in the mud we collapsed at about 3pm. Suddenly we could see Stu Elsom
running in the distance and soon a pre-arranged signal alerted us to its
presence so it was back off with the shoes and back once more into squidgy discomfort. It had been lost again and so we started all
over again. Two Little Egrets were seen and Hooded Crows and hybrids were noted
along with a Peregrine before it was mercifully refound. Running through algae
and shell infested mud is not fun but we did it to get to the latest waving
man! We had to keep telling each other to quiet down as we were just so elated
to finally see this totally stunning wader. It looked proportionally like a
funny crake than a sandpiper. Definitely one of the smartest waders I have ever
seen and my 60th of the tribe.
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| Sharp-tailed Sandpiper #407 - note that I did add it to my list despite my protestations but I have still not twitched Eire since (although I have visited) and saw the Oare Marshes Sharpie in 2007 |
We trudged our way back out of Tacumshin mud and headed back
to the road. Everyone was gasping for a drink – we were hungry, sunburned and seriously
dehydrated and without the hospitality of the owners of one of the two bungalows,
we would have all been thirsty for quite a while longer.
[Eds: I seem to remember buying a bottle of Bols cherry
brandy on the way over and carrying it around all day!]
With no public telephone we also had to ask them if they
could call us a minibus to take everyone back to Rosslare. It was nearly 6pm and thoughts of catching
the last ferry seemed lost but our driver drove like a man possessed and we
arrived on time. We were even able to exchange our £14 ferry tickets for £22
Seacat one at no extra charge. The man
simply gave us different boarding cards and wished us a pleasant journey! It
was fantastic. The speed and smoothness of this powerful boat was amazing. I
stayed up on deck for the 90 minute crossing and as we reached the Welsh coast
rafts of 1000s of Manx Shearwaters began to appear as they gathered to head into
their nest burrows for the night. [Eds: I can remember them being illuminated by
the setting sun one way and silhouetted the other.] A great way to complete a
memorable if somewhat muddy day and I do not remember getting home or
apparently walking around a service station in my socks.
20th-24th August:
My first excursion with Emma to Northumberland to help her
with her dissertation fieldwork. We saw quite a few bits up the Bizzle
including Red Grouse, Peregrines, Ravens, Meadow Pipits, Wheatears and a family
of Ring Ouzels. A trip to Edinburgh with
her parents was a nice day off and the first time I have been able to look
around the city. Tawny and Little Owls were around the campsite.
28th August:
Pete and I popped down to Cliffe for the Buff-breasted
Sandpiper that had been around for two days. Quite a crowd had gathered and it
showed exceptionally well on the closest mud. Such a tiny delicate bird with
warm colours and exquisite markings.
[Eds: I seem to recall that we walked out to what would now be the back
bund of the Black Barn Pools as viewed from the current mound.]
Like in late July the waders numbers were very good with a
good mixture of species including an adult Temminck’s Stint and Wood
Sandpiper. Lunch and then a look at the
North Quarry produced three Little Egrets, a partially albino Coot, six
Kingfishers and a leucistic Sand Martin amongst the throng of normal ones. It is strange how blasé we have already
become about Little Egrets.
We spent the rest of the day poodling around the coast but
seeing little although we did find two Pomarine Skuas off the Isle of Grain.
31st August:
A trip to Canvey Island was quiet with just a single Arctic
Skua and a few Terns but one of the Little Terns was a bit strange having concolorous
grey upperparts, rump and central tail – all characteristics of Least Tern.
Unfortunately it never called. Perhaps it was ‘Squeaker’? He did have history
of visiting Essex being in the ternery at Colne Point in the summer of 1991.
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| Squeaker? |
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