Skip to main content

Cornwall

Buff-breasted Sandpiper


I was considering a trip down to Cornwall over last weekend with two targets in mind. Firstly, to twitch a mega rare brown booby that had been reported fairly regularly from the Lizard over the course of last week. Secondly, to try and get some good photos of an American vagrant, a buff-breasted sandpiper, that was on an old airfield at Davidstow. I’ve only ever had rather distant scope views of this wader and photos appearing online seemed to indicate that this bird was fairly confiding.

I had pretty much given up on the idea on Saturday as there had been no reports on line of the booby that day but a report late afternoon soon had me booking a pub b&b for the night and heading down to Cornwall.

When I got to the lizard on Sunday morning there were 30 or so birders spread out along the cliffs and no reported sightings. In fact, the validity of the previous days reports was being question by those present. With no sightings by late morning and other sea bird watching pretty much a wash out due to no wind, I decided to cut my losses and head off to Davidstow. This turned out to be a good decision as the bobby has not been reported again!

The buff-breasted sandpiper was initially quite distant but by adopting the proven technique of using the car as a hide and with a lot of patience, I was rewarded with good views of this bird which is usually found of the American prairies. Even as a vagrant, it was rather unusual as it is a really stunning adult, while most records in Europe are youngsters. I returned on Sunday night with a stack full of photos to process.


Buff-breasted Sandpiper

Buff-breasted Sandpiper
Ringed Plover


On Monday evening I once again headed off in the direction of Cornwall to stay with my good friend Jeremy for a planned day of seabird watching at Pendeen the following day. 

Sea bird watching is a somewhat different experience to land bird watching. It basically entails sitting in a fold up chair and staring for long hours out to sea through a scope. It’s more fun that it sounds honest! Photo opportunities tend to be very limited. The aim in the autumn is to catch, hopefully rare, migrant seabirds returning to their winter lodgings. Unfortunately we had a fairly quite morning with no sightings of the scarcer petals or shearwaters we hoped for and a much slower passage of manx shearwaters than my last visit two years ago. There were a couple of great and artic skuas and we were treated to some overhead Choughs. 

In the afternoon we dropped into Davidstow again where an American golden plover had been reported in the morning but it was flushed some 30 minutes before we arrived and, as far as I know, was not seen again that day. I'm starting to think that Cornwall is my bogie county! Surprisingly there were now two buff-breasted sandpipers present as a juvenile had joined the adult I had seen on Sunday. The place seems to be some kind of wader mecca as there was a juvenile curlew sandpiper, a few dunlin and many ringed plovers also present. The reason for the sites attraction is not really clear as most of these waders are more normal found near water - perhaps it’s on a wader ley line!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Black Kite at Duncombe Park and thoughts on its provenance

     A rare Black Kite was at Duncombe park for a week or so, often associating with the display birds at the national bird of prey centre. While most birders who have seen it seem happy enough to tick it as a wild bird, its location has led to some doubts being expressed over its provenance. Some have even gone as far as to state categorically  that it’s an escapee.   So before I describe my visit to see it lets examine its provenance. As anyone who has read my blogs before will know , I’m a scientist with a doctorate in Physics and this drives me to analyse problems such as the provenance of this bird with as much logic as possible. In this regard I feel it is very important to state clearly what is a fact and what is based on a balance of probabilities.   So let’s start with the facts.    To start with it must be stated that historically there have been,  and probably still are, both genuinely wild and  escaped captive Black Kites present in the UK. The relative population of each a

A UK first! – a Grey-headed Lapwing in Northumberland

     We were out walking our dogs yesterday morning when I said to my every suffering wife that May was a top month for rarities. We had just got home and I was making coffee when I picked up on our twitching WhatsApp group that a Grey-headed Lapwing had been found near the Scottish border in Northumberland! This would be the first UK record of this Asian Lapwing and only the 4 th  in the whole of the western  palearctic.    So after a very quick coffee I was in the car and off on the 285 mile trip to Newton-by-the-Sea. It was a mainly boring motorway drive punctuated by a few nervous stops to make sure the bird was still there – a passing raptor could be enough to spook it and make it depart!   The excellent “twitching the UK group” was providing good updates on the traffic conditions, parking and the bird on route and I arrived at 16:00 and found a space to park amongst the many cars. Walking towards the birds location is always notable for the relaxed birders chatting on route back

A Baikal Teal revisits RSPB Greylake

  I’ve seen a couple of Baikal Teals in the UK, most recently 2 years ago at RSPB Greylake on the Somerset levels. It sits in that well populated category on my UK list that I’ve mentioned many times in blogs before, i.e. seen but badly!   Now a little surprisingly given its two year absence, what is presumably the returning  adult drake was re-found at Greylake yesterday.  So, with at least some sun forecast to break the seemingly endlessly monotonous  dull December days today, off I went on the 90 minute journey down the M5 to see if I could get some better views.    While checking previous Baikal Teal records I discovered that the Greylake bird from two years ago was the only UK bird I have seen that has been accepted as wild by the great powers to be providing further incentive to visit. A short walk from an almost full car park took me to the same hide overlooking a large expanse of water that I last visited two years ago. The small open hide was quite busy but with enough space t