Cornwall + Scilly - 8.10.16

With a couple of hours to spare before our flight we headed to Pendeen for a seawatch in the hope of a Balearic Shearwater for Terry. Alas that proved fruitless but we did have 20+ Manx Shearwater, 2 dark morph Arctic Skua and a Puffin. While on the land a Ring Ouzel was the highlight.

Red-Backed Shrike

Our trip back in 2014 was a very very quiet one on Scilly with Whooper Swan being my only Scilly tick. That poor showing is why we headed to Shetland last year but we managed to pick the worst year for rares up there in 10 years! So it was back to Scilly this year and our first stop was Porthcressa beach where just offshore was our first Scilly tick of the week with a Black-Necked Grebe. A Sandwich Tern was on one of the rocky lumps too. From here we walked up Peninnis Head. Nothing of note on the east side but walking down the west side I picked up my first two Whinchat of the year closely followed by 2 Wryneck! Not a bad start. The Garrison was our next port of call and here Myself and Steve had a juvenile Red-Backed Shrike and Spotted Flycatcher in the dead pines area and looking out towards the off islands we had 2 Pale-Bellied Brent Geese and an Osprey both of which were Scilly ticks! 3 times as many Scilly ticks in a few hours than an entire week already! We ended our day down on the Lower Broome platform where we got our first Yellow-Browed Warbler of the year.