14 September 2008 - The airways over Larkfield Lakes

With just so many Honey Buzzards being reported down the East coast of Britain - this was surely going to be THE day for raptors over the house. Could I really find a Honey Buzzard for the house list? With chores to do for the impending arrival of 'Junior Baldie' in to this world, I volunteered to sort the cot out that had been loaned to us from elder sister.

Of course, whilst outside cleaning said item, I could scan the airways for large flying objects - Item No. 1 wasn't quite what I was looking for, but at least shouldn't present too many ID problems.

Item 2 was a Grey Heron, doing its best to look broad-winged as it headed south - and if you half closed your eyes and ignored the long neck and ruddy great legs trailing behind it, you could kid yourself, you'd found a raptor (OK, perhaps not).

Back on the the plane front, several of these also flew South on broad wings. ID was of little difficulty and could be separated from raptors on call.

Get in on the game were several Starlings.

And Racing Pigeons...

And Woodpigeons....

BH Gulls - Not trying to look like raptors.

About 50 Swallows logged - all heading E/SE. It was about this time that news came on the pager 'Kent Osprey flew south over New Hythe GPs at 10.58am'. Bollocks - I'd missed it. I was pleased that one had been seen - I felt justified in spending ages scanning the sky. But a bit gutted - I moved to the upstairs bedroom to get a better view of the the sky - ready for the Honey Buzzard that was surely about to appear...

Cormorant - several of these chaps put in a showing and tried to look big and dark and vaguely interesting - apart from the fact that they were Cormorants!

Immature Herrings Gulls - hundreds of these were seen over the day, all shouting 'Check me out' as they tried to look more raptor-like than the Cormorants. There were hundreds of large gulls - and today, I hated every one of them!

And then at 1.30, miracle of all miracles, an Osprey came over from the NW heading due South-East. Total elation after missing the one early - a wonderful rush, I called to The Good lady Wife, we ran out to the front door to get better views - we searched and then slam went the front door! Bollocks, again!

After gaining entry to the house, I then found this Hobby circling overhead - the latest record this year.

A Sparrowhawk then put in an appearance (and actually looks more interesting in this picture than it did in real life). But certainly no Honey Buzzards.

And then, miracle of all miracles (and a slightly bigger miracle than had already occured earlier) at 2.48 a much higher Osprey circled overhead, very slowly tracking South-East.

To have two Ospreys from the house is, in my books, pretty damn good - that three Ospreys flew over the site today is excellent. I assume the Steve Nunn got the first...

13 September 2008 - St Margarets & Swalecliffe

An early start to join Mark Love on a ringing session at St Margarets. Thanks to Operation Stack, Mark had already got the nets open and was processing birds by the time I arrived. In addition to this Sedge Warbler, we caught a Grasshopper Warbler and a few Reed Warblers.

Several Whitethroats - all first year birds were ringed.

A group of 7 long-tailed Tits were caught - providing me with ample opportunity to get practising with my 'extractions' (removing a bird from a net - not taking it's teeth out!).

Presumed Bloody-nosed Beetle marched past as we were packing up.

Mega-alert only went off twice while we were ringing - once for a Western Sand in Ireland and once for this Fan-tailed Warbler. After packing up the ringing session I slowly made my way to Swalecliffe. Though news on the pager sounding les than positive, the bird duly performed 2 minutes after my arrival - yo-yoing and then perching in a dried Umbellifer before another yoyo performance and its departure.

Though looking as though I've got some dust on my camera's sensor - this is 'the bird' of the day. Of course, it could be anything - and given the number of Honey Buzzards heading down the East coast it could be one of those. Tomorrow perhaps...

7 September 2008 - St Mary's

Departure day - news though of a Hudsonian Whimbrel on Porthloo Beach had me out rather rapidly in a quest to add this to my non-existant Scilly list. Alas, I was a minutes too late for the bird which had departed before my arrival.

A nice juvenile Little Gull was seen in amongst the Black-headed Gulls.

Also in the gull flock was this Med Gull.

And now it was time to head for the flat and clear up before heading to the airport for the flight home.

With one helicopter out of action our flight was delayed, further and further 9at least 2/3 hours we were told).

I departed the terminal to see if last night's Dotterel was still on the airfield. En route a fly-by Wryneck below Tolman's Cafe was a welcome sighting - but with no sign of the Dotterel the message came through that the Citrine Wag was still on Porthhellick beach - runing round to the beach I could hear the thing but not locate it...

I checked through the waders on the beach in case the wagtail was amongst the Ringed Plovers - my attention was then drawn to a wader producing a quiet almost grunting noise (I'm rubbish at describing calls). Flying over and landing amongst the plovers a cool juvenile Buff-breasted Sandpiper - amazingly it walked right in front of a chap who was filming the Ringed Plovers - I later asked him if he got good shots of the Buff-breasted, but he hadn't noticed it and would checked his footage later.

With the Citrine still calling, but now behind me, I located the chap who posed just enough for a few pics. Now this really had to be the end of this holiday.... a what followed was a run back to the airport, only to be put on a plane to St Just as the chopper was out of action all day.

5 September 2008 - St Mary's Isles of Scilly

A rather uneventful day - only two memorable moments related to natural history was the finding of the Dotterel on the airport runway (and a Golden Plover) and when the whale picture made it on TV this evening.

A nice way to end the holiday...

4 September 2008 – Pelagic off the Isles of Scilly

With Saturday’s Humpback in mind and a wind getting windier, there was optimism, in my mind at least, before boarding the MV Sapphire.

A lumpy sea provided three Grey Phalaropes whilst we were on our way to our unknown destination.

What followed was chumming, looking, more chumming and more looking before the option of visiting a trawler, about 4 miles away, was put on the table. Given the lack of interest in our self-generated (fish) oil slick, the trawler seemed interesting.

Arrival with the trawler found a large group of birds, mainly Gannets and gulls, feeding and flying around – they all seemed to trying to hide rare sea birds…

Highlights amongst the birds included a juvvy Long-tailed Skua, Sooty Shearwater, several Bonxies, Manx Shearwaters & Storm Petrels. The Long-tailed Skua is a really good bird for the Scillies and would have been a Scilly tick for me, had I not seen an earlier bird on a previous pelagic!

Sooty Shearwater

Towards the end of our stay a superb Great Shearwater made the first of several fly-by’s – OK is wasn’t a White-faced Petrel, but it was a great bird at the end of a great little family holiday.

As for tomorrow? A fast-tracking depression is reported to be winging its way across the Atlantic and heading for Scilly… Will it deposit a predicted plethora of New World vagrants on the doorstep of our holiday accommodation? We won’t know the answer to that until tomorrow – but it does look promising.

2 Sept 08 – Tresco, Isles of Scilly

As all the more interesting birds were either on Bryher (Ortolan) or St Agnes (Buff-breasted Sand, Wryneck, Red-backed Shike, etc), we decided on a trip over to Tresco for find our own stuff.

It is probably accurate to say we weren’t entirely successful in our quest – fungi, usually of an orange/buff colour, were easiest to find as we approached the beach for some warm sun gazing.

Agapanthus in the dunes were in flower – adding a welcome splash of colour. There were some fantastic purple grasshoppers that warranted further investigation and photography but the clouds intervened and prevented us from spending much time following them – hopefully we’ll have another opportunity later in the week.

Rounding the south side of the great pool, we found 9 Golden Pheasants prior to entering the old ramshackle bird hide. Highlights, if that is the correct terminology, included 16 Mute Swans and 27 Greenshank – we were more impressed in the fact that we kept dry for the duration of our visit today.

The hide was a good place to watch animals in their natural surroundings – here the local beasts watched us in our natural surroundings.

Returning back to St Mary’s, I set off in search of a Dotterel on the Golf Course (no sign) and today’s Citrine Wagtail (also no sign) – my evening lap of the island produced three Spotted Flycatchers and a Pied Fly.

31 August 2008 – St Marys, Isles of Scilly

A stroll around St Mary’s today, taking in the Dump Clump, Airfield, Porth Hellick, Higher Moors, Holy Vale, Longstones and back.

Lepidoptera stood out today – if moths and butterflies stand anywhere – with the ‘list’ today including:
Hummingbird Hawkmoth
Peacock (including some nice caterpillars)
Small Torts (at least six seen)
Red Admirals
‘Whites’ everywhere
Clouded Yellow
Common Blue (Scilly sub-species)
Holly Blue (Scilly sub-species)
Speckled Wood (Scilly sub-species)
Meadow Brown (Scilly sub-species)

Urchins at ‘Nowhere’ put on a good showing – I always like seeing these in the front gardens, though, on reflection, imagine they would prefer to be being seen at the bottom of the sea!

This circle off the seaward end of the airport has puzzled me for years. Neolithic statement to the Gods or pissed-up tourists having a laugh?

Guess we’ve got too much smog in Kent to get the brilliant showings of litchens that Scilly has. I’ve never really done justice to the litchens on Scilly through my images – and today’s attempts are no exception.


Team intrepid – In a bid to find more interesting stuff, the Good Lady studied the granite for rare litchens while Old Father Time took time out to search the airways for vagrant North American Hirundines. Though neither where successful in their quest, I was grateful for them trying…