Update!

Right time to sort this blog out!

Went to Cornwall for bank holiday weekend, drove down Thursday 25^th night and did various seawatches between Pendeen and Porthgwarra up until Tuesday 30^th August. Birds seen from seawatching included;

Great Shearwater- 7 (lifer)

Sooty Shearwater- 245+

Balearic Shearwater -47

Manx Shearwater-upto 10,000 in one morning at Pendeen

Roseate Tern-1 (ad)

Storm Petrel- 14+

Sabine’s Gull-1 (1s)

Med Gull-5 (juvs)

Pomarine Skua-4

Bonxie- 18+

Arctic Skua-27+

Chough- 2

Whimbrel-50+

Sanderling-1

Overall very nice seawatching highlights personally being Great Shearwaters, a stunning intermediate morph Pom with spoons, large numbers of Sooty Shearwaters, self finding an ad Roseate Tern and Chough flying past about 15ft away.

Sunfish-2

Basking Shark-2

Never seen Basking Shark before so was great to see one really close at Pendeen.

Quick early afternoon visits to Drift Resv, Marazion and Hayle Estuary produced

Little Stint-juv

Curlew Sandpiper-juv

Good selection of waders but we missed finding the Baird’s Sand by a day!

Quick detour one afternoon to the Lizard to see the Black Kite, great views of it flying low over a field and even catching a vole!

Then on way home stopped off in South Devon to see some lovely Cirl Buntings by third lifer of the trip and then stopping off in Somerset to try and see the Spotted Crake and Great White Egret at Shapwick Heath NNR. Spotted Crake didn’t show but Great White Egret did which was my 4^th lifer of the trip.

Since getting back from Cornwall birding has mainly involved going down Hes East pretty much every day to see what I can find down there. So far Little Stint, Garganey, Whinchat and 2 Raven are all new for the site along with Knot which I missed out on.

Went for a seawatch one afternoon at Filey after a Fea’s had gone past Flamborough, but quiet wasn’t the word! Several Arctic Skua, Purple Sandpiper, Whimbrel and a juv Med Gull were the only real highlights.

Had an afternoon twitch up to Greatham Creek where the ad Sharp-tailed Sanpiper showed well! Then further on up the coast to Whitburn where we dipped American Golden Plover and Bonaparte’s Gull, however nearly 1000 Golden Plover on seaweed covered rocks were nice and an ad Med Gull that Ollie thought could have been a hybrid but I think it was just a runty winter Med.

Life List-288

Year List-230

Campus List-115

Semi-palmated Sandpiper is slowly getting closer and hopefully it will be relocated at Blacktoft soon!