Cornwall: Inclement Weather Birding

Tuesday 11th January
Last time I was down in Cornwall I had arrived just in time to stop the builders installing our oil central-heating tank on a piece of land that we didn't own. We'd agreed a more appropriate site for the tank (on our land!) and they were going to build a little bunker for it so that it was tucked nicely out of sight. I'd assumed that this was all going according to plan but at the end of last week I got a phone call from one of our new neighbours (who was from Oxford and whom I actually already knew) complaining about the location of the new tank. It soon became obvious that I would have to go back down to Cornwall again to check up on what had been done on this front as well as to discuss general progress with the builders.

Naturally enough my thoughts had turned to birding whilst down there though the weather forecast was rather poor with just one decent day of weather predicted for Tuesday. I'd originally planned to go down on Monday, spend Tuesday morning seeing the builder and then birding like a demon for the rest of a day before going back home on a rainy Wednesday. Unfortunately a work-crisis chose that moment to rear it's ugly head which put my plans back a day. This meant that I would be travelling down on the one decent day for weather so I decided to leave nice and early in order to get as much fair-weather birding in as possible. I was particularly keen to try and see the over-wintering pacific diver which had been around for a reasonable amount of time now in Mounts Bay. In addition I'd looked to see if there was anything tempting to stop off at en route but the only thing that I could find was a drake lesser scaup at Drozmary Pool in Cornwall which was conveniently located right next to the A30 so that I would be passing right by it.

I set off at around 8:30 am and by midday I'd arrived at Drozmary Pool. Although I'd not visited this venue before, I'd done some research using Google maps so I knew where to park. Just as I arrived a couple of birders were returning to their car and it turned out that they'd spent some time looking for the bird without any luck and had even walked right round the pool in order to get on the right side of the sun so that they could check every last bird. My general policy in such situations is not to spend too much time re-checking if someone else has already looked so I just made a very quick scan of the birds present: a dozen or so pochard and tufties, a few teal and a single goldeneye. If it wasn't there then there were more pressing birds to be seen down at Penzance instead and I soon resumed my journey, arriving at my destination at around 1:30 pm. Given that it was quite sunny I thought that it would be best not to start off at Marazion or Long Rock as that would involve looking into the sun. Instead I started off at Sandy Cove in Newlyn and decided to work my way around the bay so that I would end up at Marazion at the end of the day.

There was not a great deal of wind in Mounts Bay and viewing conditions were pretty ideal. I spent some time scanning carefully as divers spend so much time underwater that it's very easy to miss them. The results of my efforts were: two great northern divers, 1 black-throated diver and a few guillemot. A local birder (C. Barnard I think from the CBWPS reports) turned up for a while and picked out a passing Med. gull. After a while I thought that I would take a brief stroll along the track just to stretch my legs after all the driving and as well as the usual resident rock pipits I managed to find a lovely firecrest working its way along the bushes at the base of the cliff for my troubles.

Next it was on to Battery Rocks by Jubilee Pool. I was just setting my scope up when I heard a familiar squeaking sound which turned out to some purple sandpipers working their way along the shoreline. There were also several turnstone working the rocks and a single great crested grebe which I later learnt is quite a rarity in this part of the country. Turning my attention to scanning the Bay I soon spotted several divers concentrated near Long Rock beach. Whilst they were a little distant, the sun was directly behind me and the sea was calm so viewing was pretty good. I soon determined that there were a couple of great northern divers and at last there was the pacific diver. I also spotted something very small diving away frantically at the edge of the surf which must surely be one of the smaller grebes though at that distance I couldn't tell which one so it was clearly time to move round there to get a closer look.

I was more interested in finding the pacific diver than doing any
real photography today but I did quickly take a digiscoped snap of this
greater black-backed gull...

...and I couldn't resist a shot of the squeaking purple sandpipers by Battery Rocks.

At Long Rock beach as well as the three divers, I found an eider duck showing well close in to the shore. I wandered along the beach and eventually managed to track down my grebe which turned out to the a Slavonian. I also had a rather confusing conversation with a passing dog walker which went along the lines of:

Dog walker: "is that the Scillonian?" (referring to the big ship out in the bay)
Me: (mis-hearing it as "Slavonian") "yes, it's a Slavonian"
Dog walker: "hang on it can't be, it's in the dock"
Me: (surprised) "there's a Slavonian in the dock as well? I'd not heard about that one"
Dog walker: "it's always there over the winter"
Me: "I must go and take a look to see if I can find it"
Dog walker: (puzzled) "it's always moored in the same place"
At that point I twigged!



I took some record-shot quality video footage of the pacific diver.
You can just make out its chin-strap and flash-free flanks.



I also shot some footage of the eider duck which was conveniently close.

My final stop was Marazion beach where, whilst waiting for the bittern to show, I chatted away to Dave Parker and another birder about Cornish birding past and present. It turned out I'd missed the only bittern flight that evening already but by the marsh I managed to see a couple of oystercatchers, a little egret, a buzzard, plenty of snipe and the ever-present rabbits. Over on the beach there were the usual sanderlings, yet another great northern diver offshore and a couple of stonechats.

Once it was dark I headed over to the B&B where I was staying again (the cottage was still a bit of a building site). After a quick cup of tea with my hosts I nipped across the road to the Radjel Inn for a very nice chicken curry and a pint before heading back for a hot bath and an early night. It had been a long but very successful day. With the forecast for solid rain for the next couple of days I was glad that I'd managed to get in a good afternoon's birding around the Bay. As I drifted off to sleep I wondered, given the forecast, what birds to go for over the remaining two days.

Wednesday 12th January

I awoke not to the expected torrential rain but instead to find that Pendeen was shrouded in heavy fog. This weather is of course the worst for birding in that you just can't see anything at all at a distance. I had a couple of hours to kill before my meeting with the builders but it soon became apparent that the whole of the Pendeen side of the peninsula was fog bound so the only option was to head back over to the other side around Mounts Bay again. I briefly stopped off at Drift reservoir, hoping to catch up with the over-wintering Greenland white-fronted goose there but there was so much fog that one couldn't see more than thirty yards or so. In the end I went for a walk along Marazion beach just for something to do. Whilst I was getting my waterproofs on (for it was raining a little) a confiding rock pipit hopped right up to me, looking for food behind the shelter of the sea wall. It was certainly the closest I've ever been to a rock pipit. There was not much to report on the beach apart from a couple of stonechats.

I popped in at Pendeen watch just to take a look but youcouldn't see beyond the Wra so there wasn't much point in setting up the scope.

I went back for my meeting down at the Cottage with the builder which all seemed to go well and in fact we were finished in a little over an hour which gave me plenty of time to do some more birding in the afternoon. The only plan that I had was to try for the 8 Bewick's swans that were at Stithians reservoir. I'd been told by John Swann via e-mail that if I was interested in doing a Cornish list the last twitchable Bewick's had been ten years ago so they would be good birds to catch up with. I'd read that they usually came in quite late so I had a bit of time to kill before heading off in that direction. I popped in at Drift again but it was still too foggy to see so I did some brief stops around the bay where I found 11 common scoter and an eider at Sandy Cove and the usual purple sandpipers and turnstones at Battery Rocks. I had lunch in Long Rock beach car park where the pacific diver was still showing just off shore and then set off for Stithians.

I'd not been to Stithians reservoir before and although I managed to navigate to Rame (the nearest village) easily enough, in the fog I managed to get lost in the maze of small roads that lead from there to the bird hide. I ended up driving all the way around the reservoir before finally arriving at hide at a little after 3pm. I had hoped that it would be fog free inland but on the journey but it soon became apparent that there was quite thick fog in places and the hide was densely shrouded. By now my expectations of seeing any swans had vanished but I thought that I'd at least have a look out the hide whilst I was there. Sure enough one could see only a short distance from the hide where a few wigeon and teal were feeding. One couldn't see to the far side at all which is where I assumed the swans would be. Dejectedly I scanned all the angles at the thick whiteness. Through the last set of windows at the side of the hide I suddenly realised that through the foliage I could make out some large birds. These turned out to be some canada geese and then lo and behold next to them I saw some white shapes in the white fog, the swans no less! Amazed I took some video footage but combination of the fog and foliage meant that the resulting grab is of record shot quality only.

This is the view that I had!

Given the poor quality of the viewing I didn't stay too long but headed back through the fog towards Penzance. That evening I spent some time with my niece, who had recently moved to near Truro and who drove over to Penzance so that she could see the cottage and we could catch up on news.

Given how there were no photographic opportunities today I thought that I'd post this shot taken late afternoon yesterday at Long Rock where there was a nice reflective quality to the scene.

Thursday 13th January

The next day dawned still foggy in Pendeen so once again there was no point in doing anything on that side of the coast. I was due to return home today but thought that it would be rude of me not to put in at least a morning's birding before my long journey back. My plans were to have a look around Drift reservoir for the elusive white-fronted goose and then head over to the Hayle area for Carbis Bay and St. Gothian Sands NR where there was supposed to be a scaup hanging around. Through chatting to Dave Parker I'd discovered that the lesser scaup at Drozmary that I'd not seen on the way down was probably a returning bird from last year and that last time it used to commute between Drozmary Pool and nearby Colliford Lake though the latter was very difficult to view. What this meant was that there was a fighting chance that it might still be at Drozmary Pool and I therefore resolved to stop off there on the way back.

My first port of call was Drift reservoir where it was still rather foggy. However the white-fronted goose had been reported the previous day despite the thick fog so it must be possible to view it. Having not ever walked around any part of it I thought that at least it would be useful as a paid up member of the CBWPS to get to know it a bit better. I made my way around to the bird hide without seeing anything particularly unusual so I took a few minutes to shelter from the sporadic rain within the hide. Whilst in there I heard some geese and saw a few birds come in to land over the brow of the hill opposite on the north side of the reservoir. This at least explained why I'd not been able to see the birds: they were clearly feeding in a field that you couldn't see from the usual viewing points. I wondered whether there might be a line of sight to them from the west corner of the reservoir so walked around there to a wooded area where I managed to see a firecrest and a green sandpiper flew over calling. Unfortunately however there was no sign of the geese so I retraced my steps back to the car. At least I'd got a bit of a walk in which would stand me in good stead given that I was due to spend some time in the car that day on the journey back.

Next it was on to Carbis Bay. Although I'd only recently discovered this spot for myself, I was already starting to appreciate it: it's very sheltered from most wind directions, one can bird from the car if the weather is too bad and the bay seems to act as a trap for bait fish so there are often lots of birds close in to view. Some balearic shearwaters had been reported in the last few days but there were none there that day. There were however at least 20 red-head goosander, 75+ kittiwakes and 30+ razorbills as well as hoards of cormorants and shags and a couple of seals. There was a concentration of gulls in one corner which were presumably getting excited over a close-in shoal of fish.

It was still pretty misty but I managed a distant videograb of some of the goosander which came out onto the beach for a while.

Next it was on to St. Gothian Sands NR which I'd not birded before though I'd been to visit the beach en famille on holiday. It was rather windy here with driving rain so conditions were far from ideal: the main problem was continually getting rain on the optics. Fortunately the scaup was hanging around quite close in and I managed some video footage of it preening. Apart from the scaup there were a couple of shelduck a few gadwall and little grebes and plenty of pochard and tufted duck. I also disturbed a flock of 4 meadow pipits which flew away calling plaintively. There was a flock of large gulls on the far side of the central island though I didn't bother giving them a grilling.

The adult female scaup at St. Gothian Sands NR, Gwithian

With the greater scaup in the bag it was time to set off along the A30 to see if I could do the scaup double and see the lesser scaup as well. This time I had Drozmary to myself though what with the wind and rain this was understandable! Down by the waterside I scanned carefully across the lake finding similar birds to last time though there was a male goldeneye present which wasn't there on my last visit. Towards the end of my scan I came to a flock of diving tufted ducks so I had to scan slowly through these least I missed anything whilst it was underwater. Fortunately I soon picked out the drake lesser scaup diving away in the distance. It was very difficult to take any video footage of the bird as it spent so much time underwater though fortunately it didn't actually swim any great distance while submerged so in the end I adopted the tactic of focusing on the area where I'd last seen it and then zooming in with the camera once it came up. With some editing to remove the long periods of empty water I managed to come up with a short period of record-shot footage but at least you can tell what it is.

Drozmary Lesser Scaup record-shot video.

With the scaup double safely in the bag it was time to head back home after a successful though rather inclement three days. I'd managed to add a few birds to my fledgling Cornish county list though my present total is too embarrassingly small to mention in public. I've also realised that I've only once been to Cornwall in the summer so there are some really common warblers that I've not yet seen down there. With any luck this year I'll be able to rectify this. With the builders nearing the end of their work it will soon be time for us to get down there to start the decorating which will mean more time birding in my favourite part of the country

Looking Back & Looking Forward

Looking Back

In true Gnome style I'm only now starting to think about a retrospective on the year when everyone else has done theirs and is busy notching up new ticks for 2011. I've been looking through the blog entries for the last year: even if no one else reads this blog I always enjoy looking back on what I've done and find that reading the entry brings back the excitment (or disappointment) of the occasion quite vividly. After having done the county year list in 2009, I wasn't going to make any special listing efforts for 2010 and instead enjoyed a rather laid back birding year. In fact I even stopped posting my list totals on the blog part way through the year. My priority was to add to my rather meagre life list total so when I did venture out of the county it was usually to tick off a convenient long-staying and nearby rarity. I think that birders (ignoring RSPB'ers and garden bird watchers) end up settling somewhere on a line between hardcore twitcher (prepared to travel any distance for a new tick) and dedicated patch worker (who never travels anywhere). I'm very much at the patchworker end of the scale though this last year saw me doing quite a few twitches that were within reasonable striking distance. I've more or less settled on a rule of thumb that I'm prepared to travel for a couple of hours for something, preferably something long-staying so that it's a reasonably sure-thing. This way one minimises the possibility of dipping.

In February and again in March I went to Norfolk (my first time birding there actually) where I managed to see some of the local specialities

Norfolk rough-legged buzzard, seen on a very successful trip with Badger...

Shore larks were another bird I managed to catch up with in Norfolk

In April we went on another family holiday down to Cornwall which was to prove rather momentous in that we ended up buying a house down there. This has given me the chance to do a lot more birding down there which has been really great.

Woodchat shrike was the highlight of the April family holiday in Cornwall

In May I embarked on a flurry of twitching trips, starting with the Clayhanger Marsh hoopoe, followed by the Frampton pratincole and the Ilkeston great reed warbler.

Clayhanger Marsh hoopoe

Ilkeston Great Reed Warbler

In June I went to Wales to do the welsh warbler double: the Marmora's warbler and the Iberian chiffchaff

Unfortunately the Marmora's warbler is rather obscured for this photo...

I also went to Berry Fen for the drake blue-winged teal.

From July onwards I started going down to Cornwall to work on the house. Some trips were more successful bird-wise than others but there was always something to see down there

According to a recent Cornish bird report there were a total of 34 different wrynecks in the county last autumn!

This dotterel was very obliging at Davidstow airfield...

...and this melodius warbler was part of a fantastic double coming a couple of minutes after I joint self-found a greenish warbler...

...another Cornish rarity in the form of the Heligan green heron...

...and a very photogenic snow bunting at Sandy Cove, Newlyn.

Apart from Cornwall there was the Dowdeswell Wilson's phalarope which conveniently appeared just up the road near Cheltenham...

...and a circuitous route to Cornwall enabled me to stop off at Lodmoor for the long-billed dowitcher

Locally, it was a great year for my patch at Port Meadow but as I have written up a review of the Port Meadow year here I won't go into detail. I also managed to add a total of ten county life ticks during the year but once again space excludes much detail here.

The best county bird for me by far must of course be the juvenile lesser yellowlegs that I found on my patch.

The lesser yellowlegs has to get my personal bird of the year award

Looking forward
So in terms of looking forward, what is my strategy for 2011? Well so far I've not ventured out of the county birding and I've not even gone birding anywhere else within the county apart from the patch. It may well be a case of concentrating on Port Meadow, Cornwall (getting my Cornish list up to a slightly more respectable number) and the odd strategic twitch for high percentage nearby rarities but perhaps over time that will change. All I can say is that I hope that I enjoy it as much as I did birding in 2010.

Nordic Jackdaw

The combination of the Christmas festivities and the weather has meant that I've not been out much recently. I've trudged across the snow to the frozen river Thames to check the largely birdless desert that is currently my Port Meadow patch but apart from that I've not really ventured out much. Because of the harsh weather I've been feeding the birds religiously and as a consequence have been getting many more visitors to the garden. The most interesting displaced bird was probably a meadow pipit actually down on the ground (as opposed to flying over which I've had before). A couple of male blackcaps and a fieldfare have also put in an appearance so there's always been something to look at. About a week ago I spotted a jackdaw that came down to my makeshift table which is a large flower pot tray nailed to the top of the trellis so as to be out of the way of the cats. What was noticeable about it was that it seemed to have a well marked pale neck collar. Having studied my Collins bird guide I knew that this could mean a Nordic jackdaw but the bird flew off before I could get any sort of shot. I tried to re-locate it and spent some time poking my head out of the velux windows at the top of the house in order to survey the local jackdaw population. After a while I spotted the bird on the chimney pots a couple of houses down. With a bit of acrobatics, I leant out of the velux with a hand-held scope and digiscope camera combination and managed to come up with a shot.

A nice close-up taken using hand-held digiscoping equipment whilst
dangling out of the Velux window looking at the neighbour's roof!

I sent the shot to Ian Lewington (our esteemed county recorder) who was intrigued but said that one had to be careful because at that angle the base of the neck area can be somewhat exaggerated and would it be possible for me to get some eye-level shots instead. I wondered just whether I was actually going to see the bird again at all let alone get some more shots but as luck would have it it's visited the garden at least once on each subsequent day and today it actually stayed put on the bird table for quite some time so that I was able to get off a good load of shots and to see the bird from various different angles. I also took some photos of a normal jackdaw which pitched up a few minutes later by way of comparison under the same lighting conditions.

This is a normal jackdaw...

normal jackdaw: note how at certain angles there can be a hint of a collar surrounding the base of the neck, caused by the light catching the end of the neck feathers.

The rest of the shots are all of the candidate bird. Note that there's no doubt about the fact that the pale area is more than just catching the light at a certain angle.

Although you can't see it from these photos I can confirm that the neck pattern is the same on the other side so that it's not just some aberrant feathers on one side but rather a consistent pattern on both sides of the neck.

If I've interpreted my Collins correctly, the jackdaw (corvus monedula) that we get normally get in the UK is c. m. spermologus. In Finland, Russia and E. Europe it's c. m. soemmerringii which has a distinct pale half collar going all the way around the back of the neck. Scandinavian birds (known as Nordic jackdaws) c. m. monedula are described as somewhat intermediate which would fit this bird as it has a distinct collar but it doesn't go all the way around the back of the neck, being confined to the sides of the neck. Ian Lewington helpfully sent me a link to some Nordic jackdaw shots which shows the wide variation within this sub-species and my bird certainly would fall within the range shown and some of the plates there show the identical side collar markings. After chatting with Ian Lewington it seems that it can certainly at least be claimed as a bird "showing the characteristics of Nordic jackdaw". A very nice garden find!

Still not doing a year list...

With the weather having not been very conducive to birding recently I was feeling a little bit cabin feverish and needed to get out. As regular readers may know, I'm not doing a county year list this year but I still keep an eye on what birds I still haven't seen in the county this year (marked in red on my spreadsheet) and when there's nothing better to do I go off and see some of them. Therefore for my trip today I thought that I'd head west into the murky depths of the county near Standlake. There were three "red birds" on offer in this area: some Bewick's swans at Shifford, a red-breasted merganser at Pit 60 and the tree sparrows at Tadpole Bridge which it would be rude of me not to drop in on whilst I was in the area.

I was just heading along the A40 when I got a text from Badger saying that there were now 8 swans at Shifford. I told him I was on the way so he waited for me. Sure enough there were 7 adults and a juvenile all grazing away with some mute swans at a reasonably close distance to the road. I took some obligatory record shots and chatted with Badger for a while before we went our separate ways and I headed off to Pit 60.

The light was abysmal this morning so these digiscoped shots were taking at ISO 800. They've not come out too badly, thanks in part to the great noise reduction capabilities of Paint Shop Pro which is the editing software that I use. I understand that Photoshop's noise filter isn't that great and people often resort to using third party software for noise.

Pit 60 is a former gravel pit (part of the Lower Windrush complex) that has been made into a nature reserve with a couple of hides. The walk down the lane was longer that I was expecting (a few bullfinches being the main birds of note) but whilst en route I met up with Mr. Pit 60 himself, Antony Collieu, who lives in the village and checks out the pit frequently. He said that it had been a very quiet year for the patch with nothing of particular note having been found there this year apart from a recent weather-displaced bittern and the merganser though unfortunately the latter had flown off a couple of days ago with a bunch of goosander. Despite my target bird having gone I thought that it would be interesting to take a quick look so we visited both the hides. All the birds were at the southern end standing on the edge of the ice around a large ice-free area and the only bird of note was a single distant red-head goosander. I thanked Antony for his kindness in showing me around and headed back to the car.

A record shot of the site

My last stop was Tadpole Bridge for the tree sparrows. In the back of the car park there are a couple of feeders installed and I positioned myself so that I could watch them from within the car. Four tree sparrows soon came down but left before I could take any photos and I spent a fruitless further quarter of an hour waiting for them to return. I decided that I had to get back but as I turned the car around low and behold there were several of the little beasties sitting in the hedge behind me quite happily. I recalled that Badger had said that exactly the same thing had happened to him when he visited so for future reference it's worth checking the hedge out first! I took a few point & shoot camera record shots for the blog though there was no light to speak of. I'd suggest partaking of a little something at the pub by way of gratitude for using their car park and for supporting the tree sparrow project. Whilst on the subject, it's worth acknowledging the amazing work that the volunteers do for the tree sparrow project in the county: this little bird has gone from strength to strength since they started and is gradually spreading further and further along the Thames. Thanks guys!

Two lovely tree sparrows, taken with my point & shoot camera

A nice comparison shot with a house sparrow

Cornwall: Winter Birding

It was time for me to head west once more down to Pendeen to check on what the builders had been up to since my last visit. The rest of my family had had more sense than to leave the warmth of the house so it was just going to be me. I put on my sad face when I discussed this with the family but secretly a part of me was thinking: "hoorah! more birding time!". This time I wasn't going to be doing any DIY but just to inspect the work and to meet up on site with the builder so it was going to be a flying visit: down on Sunday and back on Tuesday. As usual I took a look to see if there was anything of interest birding-wise to stop off at on the way down but the best I could come up with was the long-billed dowitcher at Lodmoor in Weymouth. Calling it "on the way" was stretching it I know, but technically going down via Weymouth would only actually add another 20 miles to the journey though probably add at least an hour in travelling on the minor roads.

Sunday 5th December

I had been thinking of heading off pretty early on Sunday morning but the forecast was for thick fog for much of the southern half of the country which would only slowly clear and I didn't want to arrive at Lodmoor too early only to be stuck in the car park waiting for the fog to lift. Eventually I hit on the brain wave of googling for Weymouth webcams and found one which showed that it was nice and clear on the coast already so I set off at around 9:30, arriving a couple of hours later to be greeted by bright sunshine and temperatures verging on balmy after the last few days. The dowitcher had been reported at the viewing shelter a couple of hundred yards from the car park over the last few days so I headed off in that direction. There I made enquiries only to be told that it was currently on show at the "hump" (the south-east corner of the reserve) and that the red-breasted goose was along the track that runs along the east side of the marsh, in the last pool on the right. I'd not bothered to switch on bird alerts for Dorset so the goose was news to me. I headed off in that direction and soon found the hump. There were plenty of birds to look at: dunlin, black-tailed godwits, lapwings, snipe, shelduck and teal being the main ones. The habitat looked really good and the birds seemed to be relishing it. I couldn't immediately see the dowitcher so I decided to go and check out the goose first.

The goose was on a half-frozen pool where it was swimming around and bathing, doing a rather strange somersault as it did so which I've not seen any bird do before. I took some video footage though one was viewing through reeds so the it's rather frustratingly obscured. No one there had any particularly strong thoughts on its provenance though it was apparently not the plastic bird that has been down in Devon and it was not reported again after that day.

Some video footage of the red-breasted goose doing somersaults as it washes

Having "lucked in" (using the UK definition where "lucked out" means to have bad luck, whereas in the US it perversely means to have good luck!) or perhaps I should say "jammed in on" the goose, it was time to go back for the dowitcher. I strolled back to the hump and worked out that there was a blind spot behind the hump itself. I therefore repositioned myself and soon found it busy feeding away. Shortly after it flew to an easier point to view and gradually worked its way closer and closer so that in the end I had excellent views. Naturally I tried digiscoping it but discovered that a dowitchers have their bills under water almost all the time so that one has to keep one's finger held down constantly on the camera shutter hoping to capture the brief moment when it pops its head up. In this respect they're even worse than godwits which also have this characteristic. Anyway I managed a few acceptable shots as well as some video footage.

The few shots that actually had it's bill out of the water!

Some video footage of the dowitcher feeding. My apologies for the loud conversation going on in the background - it wasn't anything to do with me.

Not wanting to arrive too late in Cornwall and concerned at how long the cross country section from Weymouth back to the motorway might take, I didn't hang around too long before setting off again. As it turned out the rest of the journey was fine and I arrived in Cornwall just as it was getting dark. Having consulted the tide timetable before coming down I knew that high tide was at dusk today and would be even later tomorrow. As I was keen to see the purple sandpipers on the rocks by Jubilee Pool I knew that today was going to be my best chance so I headed straight over there. They weren't there when I peered over so I had a little wander around the harbour peering down at the harbour walls for possible roosting spots. All I could find however was a few turnstones and rock pipits so I headed back to the usual spot where amazingly the birds had turned up and were all tucked up asleep. There were about 15 sandpipers and a similar number of turnstones all standing on the edges of the harbour wall. I took some photos though in the half light they are of poor quality.

A turnstone in the harbour at dusk

The roosting purple sandpipers and turnstones by Jubilee Pool

After that I headed off to the supermarket to buy provisions for the duration of the stay then it was off to the cottage to store the food in the fridge & to have a meal. The cottage was absolutely freezing as they were still installing the central heating so I did little more than nuke up a microwave curry, gulp it down and head off to the B&B in Pendeen (The Old Chapel) where I was staying. This had the most amazingly hot hot water for a reviving bath and a pub conveniently located on the opposite side of the road. After such a long day I slept well that night.

Monday 6th December
I had a meeting on site at 9:30 with the builder so I thought that I would nip down to the Lighthouse for a spot of sea watching before hand. It was a very bright sunny day and with the sun directly behind me the birds were all nicely lit and showed up well even at 1/2 and 3/4 distance. I had wondered whether there would be much about but there was always something going by even though it was just common stuff. Eight or so manxies went through and there were plenty of auks zipping past. I was looking out for little auks and did spot one which looked smaller. It even caught up with a line of slower auks so that I reasonable size comparison was possible but it was not small enough for a little and was probably therefore a puffin.

Back at the cottage there was much to discuss: some radiators had been installed in the wrong place and they were that afternoon about to install the oil storage tank on a piece of land that we didn't even own - thank heavens I'd actually come down when I had! Anyway all this took up the rest of the morning so it wasn't until early afternoon that I found myself free again for some birding.

There was not much of particular note about in the area at present so it was a case of doing the rounds of the local spots to see what I could find. As part of my local birding education I was keen to visit some spots that I'd not really visited before so first port of call was Kenidjack Valley, in particular the sewage works, where I reasoned any remaining small warblers were more likely to be hanging out. On the way down the valley I came across a tit feeding flock and I scanned around for some more exotic hangers on though all I could turn up was a goldcrest. I walked down to the hamlet near the ruined chimney before heading back up again.

Classic Cornish landscape shot in the Kenidjack Valley

On the way back there seemed to be more bird activity by the settling tank and I found a grey wagtail, two pied wagtails and a single phyllosc. which immediately had me thinking tristis. It had a very pale white underside (á la greenish warbler), black legs, green tinted wings but paler brown upper body and head. It had a very faint single buff (not white) wingbar which I suspect only showed up because of the very bright light. Unfortunately it never called but it looked just like the comparison image of the tristis next to the greenish warbler in my Collins!

Next on to Sandy Cove at Newlyn where a slavonian grebe had been reported regularly each day. I managed to find a great northern diver but could not find the grebe though a local later told me that he'd not seen it in three visits down there which made me feel better about not finding it! A quick stop off at Jubilee Pool though it was, as I suspected, too early for any roosting sandpipers. Next on to Long Rock beach car park to scan the bay. There was another great northern diver quite close in but nothing else of note so I moved further along to Marazion beach where fortunately there were plenty of parking spaces at this time of year. There I passed a very pleasant three quarters of an hour watching the waders who were very close now that it was approaching high tide. The sun was shining a wonderful golden yellow (it was what photographers call "the golden hour") and the birds were very approachable. There was a good number (a couple of dozen) each of dunlin and sanderling, a single redshank and a single knot. with the odd ringed plover dotted along the beach. I met a local birder and we scanned the bay together for a while and he managed to pick up a distant red-throated diver over towards St. Michael's Mount. He also spotted a black redstart further along the beach hopping on and off the wooden posts.

Golden waders (taken with my point & shoot camera). You can just make out the knot in the top left hand corner.

Digiscoped sanderling - they are such lovely looking birds

Pensive dunlin

Some video footage of the sanderling

Once it started getting dark I headed back to Long Rock Industrial Estate to pick up some bathroom brochures and to chat to the people there about what we were looking for for the cottage. It was not quite fully dark when I finished so I nipped back to Long Rock pool where there were a couple of birders waiting to see whether any bitterns would come in to roost there (apparently there'd been four there the previous evening). It turned out I'd missed one by twenty minutes and no more came in. Whilst I was there I got chatting to a local birder who soon asked if I was Adam Hartley! Amazed, I said that I knew that Cornwall was a small community but that was still quite impressive. It turned out that he read the Pendeen Birding blog (my Cornwall-only version of this blog) and had worked it out from my saying that I was renovating a cottage at Pendeen. We had a good chat and he told me about a red-necked grebe that was currently at Carbis Bay and how to get there. He also asked whether I was thinking of compiling a Cornwall county list and I confessed that it had crossed my mind. I'd found myself thinking of county ticks when spotting even common stuff such as mistle thrushes etc. He told me that some common birds such as treecreeper and nuthatch are hard to find at this end of the county so I would have to go further up to get those. Eventually it got too dark for any more bitterns to come in so I headed back to the B&B for a cup of tea, followed by a pub meal and another hot bath.

Tuesday 7th December
I had another meeting with the builder this morning but it was earlier than the previous day so there wasn't time for a sea watch before hand. The meeting took longer than anticipated so it wasn't until late morning that I was free from my duties. I wanted to do a bit more birding before heading back home and was thinking of heading over to the Hayle area to see what was about. On the way I popped into Drift reservoir to see if the two geese (a Greenland white-front and a genuine wild neck-ringed greylag were about) but they appeared to have gone and there was little of note there.

Down at Hayle I first visited the Leylant Saltings platform. There was plenty of excellent light though as it was low tide the birds were widely scattered and somewhat distant. There was nothing of particular note to be seen. There was supposed to be a curlew sandpiper about but the dunlin flock (where it was probably hiding) was right on the other side of the mud flats. I did a some brief digscoping of a nearby grey plover.

A grey plover at Hayle

Next on to Carbis Bay which I'd not previously been to but which turned out to be a great spot. From a vantage point in front of the hotel one could overlook the bay and easily see a wide area. There seemed to be some sort of feeding frenzy going on with a large concentration of gulls in two spots as well as quite a few seals and I guessed there must have been a couple of fish shoals there. Over on the left-hand side close to the rocks I soon spotted the red-necked grebe and in the same general area was a female-type eider which (according to the chap I was chatting with yesterday) is not so common in Cornwall. On the diver front there were three great northerns and a single distant red-throated. There was also a flock of gadwall, a single red-head goosander near the rocks and another flock of three red-headed sawbills which I didn't have time to check before they moved on. There were loads of cormorants and shags and a single razorbill. A couple of birders turned up, armed not with a scope but what looked like a giant pair of war-time binoculars mounted on a tripod. We soon got talking so I pointed out what I'd found. After a while it was time to move on.

Carbis Bay - the white dots are all gulls indulging in a feeding frenzy

There was one final spot that I wanted to check in on, mainly because I'd not actually been there before and I wanted to suss out parking etc. so that I knew where to go should a rarity turn up there and that was Carnsew Basin. I found somewhere local to park and had a little wander along the southern end. There was not much to see apart from a reasonable dunlin flock, a few bar-tailed godwits, a single oystercatcher and a few grey plover. On the water itself there were a few distant little grebes. I did some more brief digiscoping as the light was so good and then decided that it was getting late and I should be heading back

The Hayle estuary, looking back from the south end of the Carnsew Basin

A feeding bar-tailed godwit in Carnsew

The journey back was uneventful, though after a while I hit freezing fog and rather pretty hoarfrost on the trees which lasted up until the M4. Whilst travelling back I was listening to the traffic reports and being profoundly grateful that I wasn't up in Scotland! It had been a most enjoyable return to my favourite part of the country and a great opportunity to experience winter birding there.

The Birding Gods Smiled Down...

Saturday morning is when I do the weekly supermarket shop. This particular chore has fallen to me for several years now and I actually don't find it too onerous. At the same time it also accrues vital Brownie Points and well all know what Brownie Points make - that's right, birding! Anyway, I was just heading off to the supermarket when I got a text from Badger saying that he'd just found a glaucous gull at Appleford Pit. To be honest, my heart sank on the news.: not only was I tied up with shopping chores for the next hour and a half but Appleford can be a very hard place to track down individual gulls as there are so many places that they can go. There is a very nice pit (the Spit Pit) from which birds can easily be viewed but if the target bird isn't there then it's either a distant blob in some field somewhere around or it's on the tip itself or one of the satellite pits. These last two locations are inaccessible to your average birder though our esteemed county recorder Ian Lewington (whose patch Appleford is) has special access rights. When the Azorean yellow-legged gull turned up at Appleford last year it took a number of visits before I finally managed to see it. Knowing all this I wasn't feeling overly optimistic about my chances. Indeed I didn't even hurry over my shopping and positively dawdled on my way home. It was only as I pulled in the drive and I got a text from Badger saying that the bird was still there that I started to contemplate actually going for it. Having even unpacked the shopping (which is usually my VLW's job) I decided to cash in the Brownie Points and told my VLW that I was heading off to a rubbish pit to look for a single gull amongst thousands. She just shook her head pityingly and said nothing.

It was some half an hour later that I pulled up besides three other cars next to the Spit Pit. When birding the Pit its generally a good idea to remain in the car as you can put up the birds if you're not careful. Also given the freezing temperatures staying in the car was a sound move! I therefore manoeuvred the car next to Badger's and through wound-down windows I discovered that the bird was still there standing on one of the banks. I soon found it, a whacking great white thing which really stood out from the throng. I hurriedly set about trying to get my tripod positioned for some digiscoping which is not so easy within the confines of the car. However whilst I was still struggling with this task the bird took off, did one circuit of the pit and then flew away. I realised that I'd managed to arrive with just minutes to spare and I'd been very lucky to catch up with it. The Birding Gods were indeed smiling down on me today!

As I'd not been able to photograph the gull itself I thought that I would take a background shot of the Spit Pit, with the tip behind it and Didcot power station at the back. Most scenic!

Fortunately Ian Lewington took these excellent images of the bird, a second winter, earlier in the day which he's kindly allowed me to reproduce here (c) Ian Lewington

Now you all may be wondering about the big fuss over what is not such a rare bird but during the three years that I've been birding in the county there have not been any twitchable glaucous gulls so this was in fact a county tick for me. Pathetic I know but I was most pleased to have laid this bogey bird to rest.