3rd October:
The month did not start well with an overnight trip to
Seaforth for a White-crowned Sparrow that had done a bunk. We had to settle for a £1.95 fry up in Crosby
before heading back home again.
A few days in the south-west with Steve Bacon
6th October
We began our day at Porthgwarra sheltering from atrocious
wind and rain and saw nothing bar some Crests and Chiffchaffs before doing all
the usual valleys. They were birdless
and a Hummingbird Hawkmoth (my first since 1990) was the scant winged
highlight. We stayed the night in Cot
Manor which would have been really nice if I had not been vomiting my guts up
[Eds: I seem to recall consuming an overly pink sausage (stop sniggering) in
the café in the Penzance harbour carpark that morning…].
7th October:
It was even wetter and windier and I did not remember much
of the day living as I was in a food poisoning haze but there was a Blackcap in
Nanquidno and lots of Grey Wagtails. I
recall taking myself to bed at 5pm in our new B&B in St Just and coming too
to watch Lethal Weapon III on the TV which was not really worth the effort.
8th October:
I was feeling a lot better and after a light breakfast we
headed into Cot Valley in search of anything vaguely avian. We found more Goldcrests and a Firecrests and
a strange pale coffee brown Phyllosc type with dark centred tertials across the
valley in a Sycamore that repeatedly flicked its wings. Could it have been a Booted Warbler? We shall never know.
There was a life tick though to be had when a Monarch butterfly glided across the valley at close range showing the bright orange and black colouration. We watched it glide around us before effortlessly flap-gliding up the other side of the valley and around the headland.
We spent the rest of
the day doing the other valleys such as St Leven where a Lapland Bunting was
the best find followed by Nanquidno and Porthgwarra. The Rose-coloured Starling in Penzance eluded
us but we did see a Firecrest and smart Black-necked Grebe on Long Rock Pool
and hear several Cetti’s Warblers. The day was finished up dipping Short-toed
Lark and Dick’s Pipit at Sennen.
9th October
Another fun night spent on the bog – yay before news of a
Red-eyed Vireo at Trevilly reached us. It
was only a couple of miles away and we were soon looking for the bird around
some small old farm out-houses and there it was! What a corker and showy too. It was crash about for five minutes or so in the
nettles and then settle in the open and watch the world go by for a while.
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| Red-eyed Vireo |
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| Red-eyed Vireo |
Content with out views we carried on down the footpath to
Nanjizal where a Melodious Warbler was performing just as admirably. It had been present for days but he good
weather had at last tempted it to show for the first time since we got down
here. It was feasting in flies gathering
around the Ivy flowers. [Eds: Nowadays I would tell you what they were!]
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| Melodious Warbler |
Three Hummingbird Hawkmoths were seen on the way back out
before we made our way back to Sennen for the Richard’s Pipit. It was still there and also showed very well
but it felt wrong and the dark lores amongst other things pointed towards it
being a Tawny Pipit. We left puzzled but sure
that it was not a Dick’s and indeed before too long the messages came out to
that effect.
 |
| Tawny Pipit |
The Rose-coloured Starling spoilt our streak for the day
before we began the long journey home via four Little Egrets on the Hayle and
no Semi-P on the Kingsbridge. Dusk at
Prawle Point was a fine way to end a trying trip and added Cirl Buntings and Yellowhammers
and 100s of pipits, wagtails and finches streaming over.
17th October
Another wasted twitch with 450 or so people descending on Prawle
Point for a non-existent Chestnut-sided Warbler. The Cirl Buntings, Firecrests
and Ravens were little compensation.
News of a Yellow-billed Cuckoo on Scilly broke while about 30 of us were
in a Happy Eater near Exeter and the word Happy was not at that point the best
one to prefix the restaurant chain. Back
to work tomorrow to be laughed at for being stupid.
28th October
A male Pine Bunting on the Suffolk – Norfolk border at
Hopton was just too much pf a temptation and so Ian and I headed up at about
1.30 not even thinking about the available daylight now that they clocks had
gone back. Despite horrendous traffic we
eventually made it but the bird had not been seen for two hours by then. We stood around chatting and scanning the hedges
when suddenly some people scampered through a gap and we promptly followed and
there he was in all his immaculate adult male glory. Five minutes of pre-roost preening and ten he
dropped down the other side out of view [Eds: and in doing so got itself onto
both the Norfolk and Suffolk lists as the hedge was the boundary]. It was now
4.35 and we walked back to the car, put the lights on and came home in high spirits. Pure unadulterated twitching. Six hours in the car and twenty minutes
out. Tick and run as they say.
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| Pine Bunting |
[Eds: As a footnote for October that year I wrote this: Thank God October is over. It was one of the best years on record for the variety and quantity of birds – in particular Nearctic ones but will also be remembered as the most frustratingly annoying year any of us could remember. Four weeks of my usual crew threatening to give it all up, sell optics and even worse was enough to drive even me mad. Sure enough it is a bummer to dip out or not be able to go for something but it’s only a hobby after all… Isn’t it?]
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