My favourite time of year had arrived but this year my usual companions on the trip to the SW had other plans and so this year Matt and George were joining me on their first autumn visit to Scilly.
4th Oct - 4am and off we went heading for Church Cove on the Lizard. Upon arrival we parked up and wandered into the churchyard and immediately connected with a smart
Pied Flycatcher. I wandered off in the hope of finding the rare one but then suddenly Matt came running round the corner saying it was showing in the car park. I legged it round and hey presto my second
Red-eyed Vireo was sat in the open preening. A
Firecrest was flitting about in the tree behind it.
A visit to Porthgwarra provided nothing of note so we headed off to Nanquidno Valley but due to the strength of the wind 7
Chough were the only birds showing.
We finished off the day at Hayle Estuary where I found a distant
Curlew Sandpiper.
Red-backed Shrike
5th Oct - The morning brought fog and so we headed to the airport to double check if flights were going. Thankfully it cleared as we were there and our flight left on time. Peninnis was the first place to visit and straight away we saw a
Spotted Flycatcher followed by a showy juvenile
Red-backed Shrike from the farm trail.
Spotted Crake
6th Oct - News the previous evening of a
Spotted Crake at Lower Moors gave us our first place to go in the morning and despite my crappy photo (screen grab from my phone) it showed ridiculously well totally unfazed by our prescence. An adult
Yellow-legged Gull on the rocks in Porthcressa Bay was a nice bonus before we headed over to Tresco.
Ortolan Bunting
On the boat we met 2 young lads both of whom were called James and one of them said he'd got the 6
Spoonbill on Green Island as we sailed past. 12 Mediterranean Gull were at New Grimsby and at the old heliport we connected with both the
Short-toed Lark and
Ortolan Bunting. It was while watching these two that a broken CB message came through with the words
American Cuckoo. It turned out one had been seen at Lower Moors and that a unscheduled boat was on its way over and if we could make the quay we could get on it. A 20 minute walk back but only 15 minutes to do it in meant I had to break out into a run which by the time I arrived at the boat I was on my last legs! (I must get fitter next year!)
Yellow Billed Cuckoo (Thanks to Ellis Lucas for use of his photo) He was just to the right of me when he took this.
Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Thanks to Chris Griffin for use of his photo)
Back at Lower Moors we'd just missed a sighting but it was sounding like an extremely elusive bird and so it proved that after a couple of hours of narrowly missing it and only Matt having had any sort of view of it we took a walk up to Porthloo Beach to clear our heads. A
Whimbrel on Taylor's Island was a nice year tick and feeling refreshed we headed back to the mayhem! Again I narrowly missed it only to find George had gone into the woods and had had scope views of the top half of the bird before it flew again after one of the James's had pished it out into view!. I went back onto the road but after another 20 minutes or so I said sod it I'm going into the woods. Matt joined me and suddenly I picked a bird flying into the favoured tree. A nervous minute or so passed before it moved again until eventually it sat out on a dead branch in full view bar a couple of leaves partially obscuring the head but when the wind blew them out the way I finally laid eyes on my first ever
YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO! It'd only taken 5 hours but in that moment it was all worth it. It soon vanished again and with that we left to join George in the pub for a celebratory beer! But the day wasn't finished as on the walk back a pale morph juvenile
Honey Buzzard soared over Lower Moors viewed from near Porthmellon Beach. What a mad day!
Green-winged Teal
Whinchat
7th Oct - After yesterdays craziness it was a more subdued day. It started with me finding a
Firecrest at Sunnyside on the way up to Newford Duckpond. Here we quickly saw the putative female
Green-winged Teal which if accepted would be only the 2nd female to be seen in the UK. Next we walked to Porth Hellick where we saw 3
Whinchat in the first field and then by the start of the loop trial the
Cetti's Warbler was singing its head off but remained invisible.
EDIT - Photos from early November proved that the teal was in fact a
Green-Winged Teal but a male and not a female as expected!!
Red-throated Pipit
One bird that was starting to annoy us was a
Wryneck by the lighthouse on Peninnis. 3 times we'd missed it so when it was reported again we headed up to try again. 5 minutes after arriving and again not seeing it the radios told us of a
Red-throated Pipit in the pig field on Peninnis. We shot down there and got into position but only a handful of
Meadow Pipit were showing. A few minutes later they took off and showed there was over 20 in the field and as they came back down one landed on an electric fence and it was the
Red-throated Pipit. But not just any old RTP, this one actually was a lovely red faced adult! We'd all been expecting a stripy 1st winter type. It sat there for about a minute before dropping into the long grass. It showed again briefly at the far end of the field and with that we headed to the Standing Stones field near Old Town and added 2
Yellow-browed Warblers to the trip list.
Blue-winged Teal
Red-eyed Vireo
8th Oct - Late news from yesterday reached us of a 1st winter male
Blue-winged Teal on St.Agnes. An early boat was organised for 9am so despite me saying it'll be on Porth Hellick or Tresco we went over anyway and no sooner had we set our scopes up and scanned the Big Pool it was found at Porth Hellick! With that news we decided to stay on aggy to see what was about. As it turned out not a lot with just 2
Spotted Flycatchers and a female
Merlin of note. We got the early afternoon boat back and chose to be lazy and got a cab to Porth Hellick as time was running out and there was one more bird to go see. From the hide we had ok views of the
Blue-winged Teal as it occasionally swam into view with 2 Eurasian birds. The other bird I mentioned was back on Peninnis so we joined a large group in one of the fields and had my best ever views of the
Red-Eyed Vireo that my good friend Jonathan Nasir had found a couple of hours earlier. The bird was obviously fresh in as it looked totally
knackered!
Dotterel
9th Oct - An early start in the hope of catching up with the mega elusive
Blue Rock Thrush didn't work but we were handily placed for the
Wryneck to eventually give itself up in Old Town Chruch yard. Up at the airfield I finally added Dotterel to my Scilly list with a nice juvenile bird in between the downpours. a stupidly showy
Snow Bunting was on Peninnis and at Sandybanks Farm the
Turtle Dove finally gave itself up for us. New broke of an
American Buff-bellied Pipit on St.Martin's but was elusive. What was probably the same bird was then found at Borough Farm on Mary's so we went to try and see it. Just a
Whinchat was seen for our troubles.
10th Oct - We started the day by walking around the Garrison hoping to spot the
Blue Rock Thrush but again drew a blank. We were approaching the Star Castle when a broken message on the radio came through. The others turned and said did you get any of that that. I replied "all I'd got was an excited Will Scott and the word thrush!). We carried on down into the high street and we found out that it was a
Swainson's Thrush at Carreg Dhu gardens. Off we went and on arrival it was pretty packed in there. Once we were ready Will walked through the shrubs to try and force it back out into view but it had vanished and everyone left empty handed. A
Firecrest was seen well though and only 2 other birds made my notebook. A
Whinchat at Higher Moors and a nice moulting adult
Great Northern Diver in Porthcressa Bay.
Blue Rock Thrush
Blue-winged Teal (both taken by George Moreton)
11th Oct - Our final full day started at Morning Point at silly o'clock hoping to finally pin down the
Blue Rock Thrush. The wind and rain weren't helping much and so after an hour or so we walked back towards Morning Point. We were a quarter of the way along the Lower Broome platform when a radio message said the thrush was showing from morning point! We turned and ran and as I jumped down into position it flew back into the trees above the rocks. George had just seen it but we had missed it. Thankfully a kind
Kingfisher obviously took offence to it being there and harassed it enough to push it onto the rocks where I finally got a decent view of my second ever
Blue Rock Thrush. Happy with that we had a celebratory cuppa and headed off to try and see the 2
Pink-footed Geese near Salakee. It was then the heavens opened and heavy drizzle started. Our plans changed and we went and hid in the hides at Porth Hellick. This turned out to be a good idea as the
Blue-winged Teal flew back into the pool and proceeded to show very well! It then stopped raining so we headed to the Dump Clump in the hope of seeing a
Red-breasted Flycatcher. Unfortunately we could only manage 2 of its
Spotted cousins before we headed back to the flat to pack to come home.
12th Oct - We got off ok and headed straight to Nanquidno Valley. Within 2 minutes we'd seen the
Red-breasted Flycatcher that was present for its 3rd day. Matt's 5th lifer of the trip! After stopping for some Pasties we visited Steart Marshes WWT in the hope of another lifer for the brothers in the shape of an
American Golden Plover. It wasn't seen but an adult
Spoonbill was noted.
So another trip finished. An excellent one all round. A total of 111 species was seen between us and personally I had 1 lifer (YB Cuckoo), 7 Scilly ticks and 20 year ticks. Thanks to Matt and George for their company and the lift! Hopefully we'll do it all again next year?!
No comments:
Post a Comment