One and a Half British Life Ticks!

Wednesday August 29th saw an early start (06:28 Virgin train to Penzance - and yes, it was smelly as usual) and I found myself near the standing stone at Marazion Marsh at 09:15 in the grey,cold,windy and showery weather wishing I had brought some gloves or was still in bed.

A couple of birders were there and had seen my target birds already, an adult and juvenile spotted crake, and pointed me to where they had last seen them. Within 10 minutes of watching I had a brief view of one of them, the juvenile spotted crake, as it moved through some sedges before disappearing from view. The impression was of a small brown bird with pale speckling on its back and sides before it was lost to view. About an hour later I heard an unfamiliar alarm call and saw the juvenile spotted crake run through some sparse vegetation before disappearing from view again, this time I managed to see the yellow and red marked bill before it was lost from sight. And that was all I got for the 3 hours I stood and waited in the cold and wind and showers and I never saw the adult bird but it was worth it.

I have counted this as half a tick as a few years ago while visiting Radipole Lake in Dorset I had heard a spotted crake calling. It was a warm, humid overcast day around 4pm and it called regularly from vegetation right by the side of the footpath but I never caught a glimpse of it. Todays brief and a little disappointing views have now placed spotted crake firmly on my British life list.

Other birds of note were fulmars and gannets offshore, a flock of 20 curlew flying over with a single winter plumaged bar-tailed godwit amongst them and turnstone, ringed plover, sanderling and dunlin along the beach although they were very mobile due to disturbance from kite surfers and walkers.

As I left Penzance on the train at 1pm the sun had started to shine although it remained very windy. I got off the train at St Erth and walked down to the Hayle estuary, noticing a collection of birders at the road bridge crossing the head of the estuary and as I approached I could see 3 small waders feeding on the mud. And there were my second British lifers of the day, 3 pectoral sandpipers that gave ridiculously close views as they fed unconcernedly on the mud just below the bridge. I guess they have been blown over in the awful gales we had on Monday. What a time to have lost my camera! I had my old Canon Powershot camera with me and managed some half decent photos - I used to love my old Canon camera but using it today after my Panasonic Lumix it felt cumbersome, slow and clonky with quite limited optical capacity.

Three Pectoral Sandpipers!

Two Pectoral Sandpipers!

Pectoral Sandpiper - The bird on the right looks slightly larger

Pectoral Sandpiper - poor close up on my old Canon Powershot camera!

I watched the birds busily feeding for a while, they were very attractively marked birds and were like a cross between dunlin, purple sandpiper, common sandpiper and ruff. Pectoral sandpiper have been another of my bogey birds, having dipped them on quite a few occassions, so to see 3 together and at such close quarters was quite special.

Other birds seen were 20 eclipse plumaged teal, a summer plumaged black tailed godwit and a winter plumaged bar-tailed godwit, a juvenile shelduck and lots of gulls including a few adult lesser black backs.

And so I headed home on the train having had a great day bird watching, its very rare that I see a new bird so having seen 2 new birds was quite a feeling!

Wood Sandpiper semi-dip and a Loss of Images

Gales and rain for the August Bank Holiday, and it turned out to be an amazing day for seawatching in Devon, but I had to work - however I don't think it would have been much fun in the atrocious weather.

Tuedsay 28th August and we headed out to Hope Cove for a coast walk. It was warm and sunny and breezey but very pleasent. On getting out of the car at Hope Cove a big clump of Red Valerian had feeding on it a Meadow Brown, a Large White, 6 Small Tortoiseshell, 2 Red Admiral and best of all, 2 Painted Ladies, only my second sighting of the year. Further along the coast path I saw more of the same and a further Painted Lady along with a Jersey Tiger Moth and a Rush Veneer, and a Sexton beetle (complete with mites) was chomping away on a dog turd on the footpath.

I had a look for the reported wood sandpiper at South Huish Marsh but only managed a brief sighting of a green sandpiper. A raven flew over with half a rabbit in its bill and a juvenile wheatear was perched on a fencepost. A common tern flew West along the coast and a juvenile guillemot looked a little moribund sat on the sea close to the beach. Around 70 dunlin were roosting on the beach where South Milton Ley enters the sea, being ridiculously close to the sun bathers on the beach ( the Thurlestone Bay bird website gave a final count of 86).

The toilet block at Thurlestone had some nice moths - 2 Magpie moths, a Brimstone moth, a Chinese Character, a Lime Speck Pug, 2 Bloodvein and what I think was a pale Flounced Rusic.

On the way home we stopped off at Aveton Gifford at the new South Efford nature reserve set up by the Devon Wildlife Trust to look for a reported wood sandpiper but I failed to see it (again) but I did hear one giving its distinctive flight call. 2 Egyptian geese were with some Canada geese and 9 little egrets were seen along with a flyover stock dove.

Unfortunately the photos I took for the day are lost as when I got home I realised I had lost my camera, I had the camera bag but the clasp was open so I don't know if I had put the camera down somewhere and forgot to pick it up or it fell out of the bag while walking - ohh dear. I am more f'd off at losing the memory card and the days images than anything else and now I will have to buy a new camera. We did head back to Thurlestone to have a look for it but with no luck, at least my photos are all on the laptop except that days snaps. And I had failed to see a wood sandpiper twice!