And so this is Christmas 2018

It's nearly Christmas again, this year has just whizzed by at a frightening rate. It has been another difficult year personally and professionally (or maybe it's just my age) but it has also been another fantastic year for wildlife which has been a great source of comfort and joy.

The illness and subsequent death of my father-in-law at the beginning of the year meant very little birding, spring birding was slow and the heatwave of June and July precluded any birding too. Autumn was also slow and the end of the year has been quite busy with non-birding things but overall it hasn't been a bad year.

I've added 4 new birds to my UK list - sooty shearwater, gray catbird, red-rumped swallow and pomarine skua - but all 4 birds I have seen before, just not in the UK. Other highlights included better views of my 2nd ever Temminck's stint and Isabelline (Daurian) shrike along with green winged teal, Balearic shearwater, ring-necked duck, cattle egret, pectoral sandpiper, hawfinch, Bonaparte's gull, yellow-legged gull and tundra bean goose. Low points included no wood warblers this year, my first dip since my first ever sighting of one in 1988 and showing the now rapid decline of this species in Devon, and no little stint or curlew sandpiper although both these species can be very variable in numbers year to year.

My pelagic trip from Brixham was cancelled due to bad weather but I did manage a sea watch instead from Berry Head, my first proper sea watch and despite the wind, rain and cold I had a great time watching great- and Arctic skuas, Manx- and Balearic shearwaters, harbour porpoise and 2 sooty shearwaters. A pelagic trip from Plymouth was interesting too but the hot and settled weather and the early date in July meant very few sightings. A day trip to the Scilly Isles in September was much more exciting with sooty, Manx and Balearic shearwaters showing very well from the ferry along with common dolphins and tuna, and a pectoral sandpiper on St.Marys showed amazingly well too down to just a few feet in front of the hide.

A day out at Minsmere in Suffolk and trips to Ham Wall, Beesands and Slapton and Penzance and Hayle with Mavis were good days out while trips to Turkey, Macedonia and Iceland provided some interesting sightings too including Alpine swift, Yelkouan shearwater, pygmy cormorant, laughing dove, hoopoe, red-backed shrike, tawny pipit, pallid swift, Syrian woodpecker, black stork and whooper swan.

Cetacean sightings have been good with killer whales, minke whale and white beaked dolphins in Iceland being the highlights along with bottle-nosed dolphins in Istanbul, common dolphins from the ferry to the Scilly Isles and harbour porpoise off Berry Head.

It has been a great year for butterflies, helped by the hot and dry weather in June and July. I managed to see my first purple emperor, white-letter hairstreak, brown hairstreak and silver-spotted skipper and also managed to finally get some good views of purple hairstreak and my first Essex skipper for over 32 years. Heath fritillary, clouded yellow, chalkhill blue, green hairstreak and dark-green fritillary were also highlights but despite the good weather I rarely had the moth box out and only managed a few sightings but including hummingbird hawkmoth, black arches, large ranunculus, marbled green, coronet, rosy footman and Jersey tiger.

And so to 2019 - another difficult year on the cards by the look of things but wildlife will always be there for me. I'm planning more butterfly trips and hopefully more pelagic trips, I have the money now saved for a new telescope (I just need to try some out first before I buy), and I want to concentrate more on new birds for my UK list and scarce and uncommon birds I am not very familiar with. Here's to 2019 - Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

A Surprise on a Birding Day in Cornwall

Monday 17th December saw myself and Mavis heading down to Penzance on the train for a birdy day out, much needed by me in order to escape the pre-Christmas madness.

It was cold and sunny as we set off on the 09:20 train to Penzance but we soon passed through misty patches and then into cloud and by the time we arrived in Penzance it was breezy and overcast but thankfully dry. With high tide due around midday we headed off first to the Jubilee Pool to look for roosting purple sandpipers and quickly found 23 of them asleep in grooves along the harbour wall. They were all asleep with bills tucked under their wings but occassionally one would wake up briefly allowing Mavis to get a better view of what is a new bird for her.

Purple Sandpipers

A small group of dunlin and sanderling were roosting on the rocks with a few turnstone before flying off but later 4 dunlin returned and were joined on the rocks by a couple of turnstones and purple sandpipers.

Dunlin

Turnstone and Dunlins

Dunlin

Purple Sandpiper

The sea was very rough and choppy and scanning offshore into the strong wind was difficult but we managed to pick up a few gannets flying around, shags on the sea and an adult kittiwake feeding with some herring gulls before I picked up a very dark looking gull like bird offshore heading west and out to sea - a skua! I managed to get my telescope onto it and tracked it across the bay - no white wing patches and broad based wings with angular tips, a pomarine skua no less and my first in the UK. A dark phase/juvenile bird, it was too distant to get any real detail on and I couldn't pick up any white wing flashing as it flew low across the water with powerful and purposeful wing beats and the occasional glide and it was soon lost to sight around the headland towards Mousehole.

While tracking the skua I picked up a great northern diver on the sea but couldn't refind it later but a single bird and then 2 birds were seen flying west across the bay with the 2 birds flying up quite high before being lost from view. A small group of around 5 scoter were also picked up distantly in the swell but were very difficult to observe along with the odd auk which were also difficult to view between frequent dives.

We decided to head back to the train station to have a look off the sea wall and quickly found an immature male and a female eider feeding close to shore with a further 2 immature males feeding further out with bizarrely 2 female goldeneyes, my first sighting of this species in Mounts Bay.

Eiders

We had a good look around the rocks and boulders by the sea wall and found a few rock pipits and pied wagtails feeding along with a female type black redstart which gave some very good views.

Black Redstart 

Black Redstart 

Black Redstart

We grabbed a pasty for lunch before catching the 14:00hrs train to St.Erth, walking down to the Hayle estuary causeway for a look at the mudflats on the outgoing tide. As we arrived at the bridge we quickly found 2 male goosander busily diving for food before having a preen and a brief sleep on the waters edge. While out on the mud it was interesting to see how peachy looking their underparts were, not the white that I was expecting.

Goosanders

Golden plovers and lapwings were wheeling around overhead before settling on the mudflats but there was no sign of any predator around. They remained nervous and unsettled and regularly took to the air along with a small flock of dunlin. Curlew, redshank, oystercatcher and a single black-tailed godwit were also seen along with wigeon, teal and shelduck and a single little egret.

We eventually found the wintering spoonbill busily feeding along the waters edge and along the small creeks and at times it gave some nice if distant views, showing its yellow tipped spoon bill occassionally as it paused briefly in its search for food.

 Spoonbill

Spoonbill 

There were lots of gulls roosting and bathing out on the estuary and amongst the herring, black-headed  lesser black-backed and great black-backed gulls were a sprinkling of Mediterranean gulls too, difficult to keep track of as they moved around and either 1st winter or adult winter birds with the 1st winter birds looking very smart and distinctive and the adults pale and ghostly. Unfortunately there was no sign of the recently reported Caspian, Iceland and ring-billed gulls but the wind, dull light, distance and the large number of gulls present were all against us.

It was soon time to head back to St.Erth to catch the 16:10hrs train back to Plymouth but it had been a very enjoyable day out and the perfect antidote to the pre-Christmas stress going on in the world and with a surprise UK lifer to boot.