Gray Catbird Twitch

Storm Callum may have mucked up our travel plans for France but it did mix things up on the birding front with some good birds appearing in the UK including a gray catbird at Lands End in Cornwall - although the cancellation of our trip to France did mean I got to see the Isabelline Shrike at Thurlestone.

The gray catbird was found on Monday 15th October but I wasn't free to go and look for it until the 20th October and fortunately it did remain at Treeve Moor near Lands End during this time. However the 20th was a Saturday and also the first Saturday it was on site, it was also the beginning of half term holiday hell and a sunny and warm day and so I decided to give it a miss and went for a walk at Wembury instead (and I have seen a gray catbird before in Central Park in New York in 2007).

It was glorious at Wembury with warm sunshine and little breeze and it was nice to see a few butterflies on the wing - a small copper, red admirals, small whites, speckled woods and at least 3 clouded yellows were all seen - but there were no moths present in the toilet block.

Clouded Yellow, Wembury

Bird wise it was very quiet with a chiffchaff, a blackcap and 3 goldcrest in the pine trees at The Point with blue, great, coal and long-tailed tits, and a chiffchaff heard calling in the valley to the beach being the only sign of migrants. Also seen were a flyover grey wagtail, 12 Canada geese in the stubble field before flying off when a pheasant shoot began on the nearby hillside, 2 curlew along the foreshore with oystercatchers, mallards and a little egret, meadow pipits and skylarks feeding in the fields and flying over and a patrolling female kestrel.

It became very busy as the day warmed up and after a pasty and coffee on the beach for lunch I headed home away from the crowds but it had been a very pleasant mornings walk.

Violet Sp. in flower, Wembury Bus Stop

Wednesday 24th October was my next free day and with the gray catbird still showing well down at Lands End I decided to go for it despite my reservations of attending a Twitch. I caught the 06:28 train from Plymouth to Penzance (a stinky Cross-country train but with the usual lovely crew) and on arrival in Penzance at 08:20 I had a quick look off the sea wall where a male eider was out on the water with an immature male and a female also nearby.

I caught the 08:40 bus to Lands End, arriving at 09:30, and just before my bus stop I passed a field full of cars and birders where the catbird was showing. I walked back along the road and down across the field to a group of assorted birders peering over a hedge and within just a few minutes heard the bird calling but missed the brief sighting of it perched on top of a bush. A few minutes later it reappeared in the top of a bush and this time I caught a brief view before it disappeared again and shortly after it reappeared again for a few seconds before flying off, flashing its chestnut undertail coverts as it went.

Gray Catbird, Treeve Moor, Lands End - photo courtesy of Mashuq Ahmad, CBWPS Website, 24/10/18

I was pleased to see it and so quickly but wanted better views and so I walked around to the other side of the field and within a short time it appeared in a bush, mostly obscured by leaves as it busily preened itself showing its black eye, black cap and grey plumage. After a few minutes it moved out into the open to snaffle a red berry, a very smart looking bird and larger than I expected, before it dived into cover again. I managed a few more good but brief views as it moved through the undergrowth until it became more elusive as the day warmed up and I only managed a further brief flight view and a brief call before I left the site to catch the bus back to Penzance at 13:00.

Gray Catbird - not even a record shot!

For a Twitch it wasn't too bad with the usual mix of a mostly nice bunch of birders - friendly local birders chatting away and keen to get all the visiting birders onto the bird, birders with massive cameras who just had to keep inching forward towards the bird, the usual telescope and handbags at dawn spats between birders especially when somebody started trying to lure it out with a recording on their phone (which I have to agree isn't acceptable), the usual loud and obnoxious twat who goes on and on about all the birds he has seen recently, those who stand around nattering and waiting for somebody else to find the bird for them along with everyday birders who just want to see the bird and including a few who looked like they were going to pop if they didn't.

Also seen while watching and waiting for the gray catbird to show were flyover peregrine, kestrel, sparrowhawk and buzzard, gannets offshore, jackdaws galore overhead, flyover meadow pipits and a pair of feeding stonechats.

Back in Penzance and I had a quick look again off the sea wall where the male eider was still around with the female and now 2 immature males nearby and then I caught the train to St.Erth for a quick look at the Hayle estuary.  The tide was beginning to come in and feeding and roosting out on the mudflats were 2 black-tailed godwit, a bar-tailed godwit, 5 Dunlin and 100+ golden plover with lapwing, redshank, curlew and oystercatcher, teal, wigeon, a male mallard, shelduck and a greylag goose, herring, black-headed and great black backed gulls, 2 little egret and carrion crows. 

The highlight though was a great white egret roosting on Ryan's Field which showed very nicely, quite undisturbed by the traffic passing nearby.

Great White Egret with Black-headed Gull, Ryan's Field, Hayle

Great White Egret

Great White Egret with Redshank

And so a very enjoyable day, the twitch wasn't as bad as I was envisaging with a nice crowd and nice views of the gray catbird (only the 2nd for the UK) and a bonus great white egret on the journey home - not bad at all.