Any day that starts with 3 Black Redstart and a Redpoll isn’t too shabby and that’s what I had at Porthcressa. Sadly that decent start shortly went horribly as a birder camping on St.Agnes had been woken by a calling Stone Curlew at 3.30am and that it’d just been flushed from the rocks at Old Town heading towards Peninnis.
Thinking that’d never be seen again I headed to Porth Mellon where 2 1st winter Common Gull were added to the trip list and the female Common Scoter was offshore. News then broke of a Caspian Gull where I’d just been at Porthcressa so I headed through the dump and was almost by the hospital when news came in of the Stone Curlews reappearance at Old Town. I turned round and started running much to the bemusement of a fellow birder coming up the hill. I told him why I was running and together we headed back to Old Town. Radio messages came through it was below the church, then flown to Tolman’s then back towards Peninnis! I literally arrived as people were lowering their binoculars saying they lost it to view. Missed it by 2 seconds and Cliff Smith had been there but couldn’t see it below the church due to trees being in the way. It was then re found on Bryher. Bloody birds!
With this disappointment I headed to Longstones to try and cheer myself up with some of their lovely lemon drizzle cake! Along the track from the road past Carreg Dhu and up to Longstones I found 4 Firecrest.
Post drizzle cake I had a Mistle Thrush and another Firecrest at Holy Vale and then in the last field before the beach at Pelistry my 6th Firecrest of the day. Whilst having a cuppa at Ralph’s a Merlin shot through and a Yellow Wagtail flew over heard but unseen.
I then had a distant Cattle Egret that was near Longstones. 1 of 2 that had appeared just after I’d left there. A quick look at Porth Hellick provided nothing of note and then I bumped into Cliff out on the road and he very kindly gave me a lift to Porthcressa where we saw a 1st Winter and adult Caspian Gull. These caused quite the twitch and were a Scilly tick for most even those who’d been coming for 30 plus years. Thankfully I’d seen Scilly’s 5th record last year on a pelagic but over the last couple of days of my visit as many as 10 were seen across the islands.
As we were watching the gulls Mick Scott pulled a tube out of his pocket of a lovely Merveille du Jour moth which is still quite a rarity on Scilly and then someone said about seeing his even rarer moth at his accommodation. I followed him up to Buzza and saw his smart looking Feathered Brindle which was a new one for me.
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