Cornwall 1.2.25

Booted Eagle courtesy of Chris Griffin

Back in October a pale morph Booted Eagle was found in the far SW of Cornwall but sadly I was on Scilly at the time and despite giving it a couple of hours once we got back to the mainland we didn’t see it. Fast forward to November when a dark morph bird was found at Henley on Thames but again I failed to see it and I thought that was my chance gone.

But then on 12th January a pale morph bird was seen just to the north of Marazion Marsh and it stayed faithful to a small area. Sadly for various reasons I couldn’t get down there until the start of February. Photographic evidence showed it was the same bird from October but where had it got to for 3+ months?!

So along with Brendon we set off from my house at 2am I drove down and arrived just after 7.30am. I parked in the A30 lay-by and got set up. Considering it’d been present for nearly 3 weeks there was still around 30 birders present and at about 8.50 someone said they thought they had it on the ground at the end of the pines and sure enough there it was. It jumped in the air a couple of times showing off its distinctive underwing before flying up onto a hedge. Here it sat for a couple of minutes before it took flight and went behind a farm before being seen crossing the A30 just to the north. BOOTED EAGLE was at last on my list!

After that excitement we headed into Penzance where on the rocks adjacent to the Jubilee Pool we saw at least 60 Purple Sandpiper, 20 Ringed Plover and 70 odd Sanderling. On the far side of the pool a Kittiwake was showing well.

We then headed over to Mousehole where from Cliff Road we saw many more Kittiwake, numerous auks and at least 6 Great Northern Diver but sadly the Pacific Diver eluded us. 

Sennen was the next stop where at the far west end of the beach coming into the garden of the last house I noted 20 Chough. Not a bad garden tick! On the rocks by the lifeboat station we saw this stunning male Black Redstart.

Black Redstart

The last stop was the Hayle Estuary where 5 Goosander, 200+ Dunlin and an adult Mediterranean Gull were seen. 67 species seen today and I was in bed by 8.30pm!