TheFinancialBirder

Becky and I spent a lovely Bank Holiday weekend down in Cornwall and I was hoping for some good month ticks and possibly year ticks. The forecast was promising for warm weather but the winds looked rather light, so I really had to rule out seeing any big Shearwaters from one of the headlands. In fact, it was northerlies, which were blowing so Pendeen was the location if any sea watching was to be done.
The journey down wasn’t too bad, but the inevitable traffic queues were encountered on the A30 around Bodmin. We both saw a pair of Kingfishers fly over the road heading towards the River Stour, in Dorset. Common Buzzards were plentiful too with many birds seen on the journey down.
Our first stop was to be Hayle Estuary, before we settled in Pendeen Village at our Bed & Breakfast location. A juvenile Buff-breasted Sandpiper had been found yesterday within the harbour and fortunately for me, the bird as still present on the Estuary feeding in the harbour in the ‘Carsew Basin’ area. This was my 2nd ever Buff-breasted Sandpiper, the last one being when on Hayling Island in the 1980’s! Leaving Becky in the car reading here book, I headed off to the harbour to view the bird. The bird showed well, though distant, in the heat haze walking over the sand and seaweed in search of food. Its distinctive small size compared to a Ruff was most distinctive and its buffish all over plumage easily distinguished it from all the other waders present. Amazingly, this must be the third rare wader in the past few months on the Estuary, which included Long-billed Dowitcher, Semipalmated Sandpiper and earlier this year, the Spotted Sandpiper. But it is a well-known site for American birds.
Other waders present included two more month ticks, which were Bar-tailed Godwit and a single Sanderling. The former was in the presence of a couple of Knot (a winter and summer plumaged birds), several Ringed Plover, many Dunlins (all of which were heavily scrutinised) and Curlews. The Sanderling was seen resting with Ringed Plover and Dunlin on the opposite stretch of harbour behind us watching birders. So, with the Buff-breasted Sandpiper under my belt, the weekend starting well.

After putting all our stuff away within the B&B, we headed down to the Lighthouse to do some afternoon sea watching. A sea fog was rolling in and eventually, it was cold and near impossible to do any sea watching and therefore around 6pm, we called it a day.
However, when the fog cleared briefly at times it was possible to get some sea watching in and some good stuff was picked up. Around us on the grass were many Rock Pipits, which were quite tame as they walked within yards to where we sat. A couple of Wheatears were also present and showed very well throughout our stay.
Out at sea, we picked up at least four Basking Sharks drifting along. These were Becky’s first sightings of Basking Sharks as she admired them through her new binoculars and my scope. I also picked up a pod of three Risso’s Dolphins but Becky dipped on these much to her disappointment.
Numerous Gannets flew by all the time while down on the rocks below; many Shags were on the rocks and flying past low over the water. At least two Manx Shearwaters were seen flying south low over the water and a female Kestrel flew past, putting up a fairly large flock of Linnets in doing so. Again, the fog put paid to any more sea watching so we headed back to our B&B to warm up. A pair of Stonechats could just be made out one of the walls near the car park and a Wren was seen well in the B&B garden. So that was eight more month ticks today, which bowed well for the rest of the holiday.

Piczo