STITHIANS RESERVOIR - THE LIZARD LIGHTHOUSE AND VILLAGE - KYNANCE COVE - MARAZION MARSH
WEATHER: broken sunshine all morning then heavy cloud with heavy rain showers, later more sunshine
Today was much better than yesterday as far as the weather was concerned! The forecast was much worse than the actual weather, so we were pleasantly surprised. We got to Stithians after several diversions because of closed roads, our first destination was the southern causeway where a hide gives good views over the reservoir and mudflats.
We spent a good hour watching many species and enjoyed listing our first Little Stint and only our second Lapwing. Not many waterfowl were out there, just Little Grebes, Moorhens, Mallards, Teal and Cormorants. We saw very few waders, a flock of 14 Ringed Plover accompanied the Little Stint, we saw three Curlew, four Little Egrets, a couple of Grey Herons and a bunch of Canada Geese.
Stithians Reservoir, the water level is quite low
Two Northern Wheatears dashed about on the grass margins around the water as did Pied Wagtails, Stonechats and lots of Jackdaws. Ravens flew over, Blue and Great Tits called from the bushes with Robins in full winter-song.
Ringed Plovers - the smaller left-hand bird is a Little Stint
Little Stint (left) with a Ringed Plover
Getting to the northern causeway looked to be a problem but we ignored the road closure signs and drove straight there (no-one was working on a Sunday!). We soon realised that it wasn't worth the effort getting to the northern causeway because we saw nothing new there and even fewer species. A very large bank of dark cloud was creeping ever so slowly towards us, so we got into the car and headed to The Lizard.
the Lizard, looking from the Lighthouse
At the Lizard we enjoyed a couple of hours of sunshine with some nice birding thrown in. Scoping the sea from the Cliffs below the lighthouse we realised that a lot of birds were moving through but they were very distant. We did identify a few closer species such as: Gannet, Kittiwake, Common Scoter (Mike found a string of about 30), Manx Shearwater, Arctic Skua and Shags, but we could not get enough on the 'auks' flying past or the larger Shearwaters.
Much closer on the rocks we found Cormorant, Shag, Great Black-backed Gull, Oystercatcher and in ther bay below us we saw several Grey Seals. Up on the grassy fields behind the cliffs we picked half a dozen Northern Wheatears and lots of Jackdaws, Rooks, Crows and a couple of Ravens. We heard Red-billed Chough a couple of times without seeing them. The sky was full of Barn Swallows, dozens of them, they were all over the place but none we flying off across the sea in a southerly direction.
Back at the car park we scanned the open fields where our first Kestrel was spotted, a flock of 100+ Linnets dashed about and we finally caught up with a couple of Chough. It started to rain very lightly, so we jumped into the car and drove into Lizard Village for coffee and cake. During our coffee stop the rain hammered down which prolonged our stay somewhat. Eventually it eased off and we dashed to the car heading next to Kynanace Cove.
Two Wrynecks had been seen down in the Cove, so after a delay in the NT car park, whilst we waited for the rain to stop, we set off on foot to walk down into the cove. We enjoyed watching Meadow Pipits and a Rock Pipit as well as a couple more Northern Wheatears. It was quite busy down there, so our chances of finding a Wryneck was very slim. Stonechats and Linnets and a pair of Red-billed Choughs completed our findings, we left around 2pm.
Kynance Cove a beautiful spot
It rained most of the way back to Marazion where we spent the last hour of our birding day walking around the marsh and the 'camp-site' lanes behind it. We saw a few species but nothing much, honestly I think this trip is very hard work, there does not seem to be many migrant species around except for lots of Wrynecks and a few American waders. The wind had picked up as we walked across the marsh, we saw Greenfinch, Linnet, Stonechat, Little Grebe, Moorhen, Canada Goose and Mallard.
Little Grebe at Marazion Marsh
Red Admiral taken by Mike - we saw several of these as well as Speckled Woods and Large Whites, also a Common Darter dragonfly.
We left at 5pm and drove back to the hotel in Camborne, dinner was early this evening, we ate at 6:30pm, the service wasn't great and Lorna wasn't served the meal she ordered!