DEVORAN QUAY - GWITHIAN SANDS POOL - STITHIANS RESERVOIR
WEATHER; another glorious sunshiny day, with a light breeze. Cold late afternoon.
It was a wader-day today, there are several species missing from our list and at least 7 species were on offer today. Three of those were seen yesterday at the Quay at Devoran, so that is where we headed first thing this morning.
What a beautiful, picturesque, little town with its quintessential tidal river and sheltered quay, I fell in love with this place as soon as I saw it. After parking the car I noticed some tiny dark specs at the edge of a field, high up on the hills above the town. I set up the scope and scanned the field and found 6 Red-legged Partridges, our first new bird of the day.
We had arrived exactly 2 hours after high tide, so the water level was dropping and mudflats became exposed bringing in lots of waders and gulls. Yesterday, at this site, three potentially new species for our list were seen: Black-tailed Godwit, Spotted Redshank and Whimbrel. We searched high and low for them and came up with just the Black-wits, with no sightings of the other two.
you can see the fields in the distance where we found the Partridges, high tide at Devoran Quay
We did find Bar-tailed Godwits, dozens of Curlews, even more Redshanks, also Oystercatchers, Dunlin, Red Knot, Greenshank, Little Egrets, Cormorants, Mute Swan, Canada Geese and four species of gulls. Lorna found a Kingfisher perched on the quayside embankment wall.
Mike then found a flock of Siskins feeding in a pine tree with Goldfinches, Blue and Coal Tits, that was a nice find. As we walked back up river a Glossy Ibis dropped in amongst the gulls, it was another new bird for the trip.
Siskin found by Mike
Looking down river from the Quayside
I found it hard to drag myself away from this beautiful place, I vowed to return and will definitely do so.
record shot of the Glossy Ibis
Our next destination changed somewhat after we heard of a Grey Phalarope being seen at Gwithian Sands for the second day running. It was unlikely to move on during the day so we took a chance and drove there. After parking on the side of the road we scanned the pool and almost immediately found the Phalarope. We then walked over to the pool and had unbelieveably close views of this enigmatic little arctic-bird, it is so tiny!
Red (Grey) Phalarope
pictured with a Little Grebe for size comparison
Other species on the pool included Tufted Duck, Teal, Moorhen, Little Grebe, Mallard and Canada Geese. A few Curlews fed on the island and we counted four Northern Wheatears around the grassy margins. After a quick cuppa at the cafe we walked back to the car and drove into Hayle to buy lunch, which we ate in the car park of the supermarket!
Next we set off for Stithians Reservoir in search of more waders, both Wood and Green Sandpipers were seen today and we needed both of them for our list. At the Southern Causeway we sat in the hide and scanned the open areas exposed due to low water levels. We found a lot of Pied Wagtails, Curlews, a few Teal, Lapwing and not much else.
So we drove to the Northern end of the water and parked at the fishing/water sports lodge. We knew we had a fairly long walk to the cove where the waders were supposed to be, so off we went. Along the way we counted over 40 Ringed Plovers, another half a dozen Northern Wheatears and a nice flock of Linnets.
two of the Stithians' Northern Wheatears
In the Cove near Penmarth we found one of our target birds, the Wood Sandpiper and along the way we also found 2 Common Sandpipers, Grey Wagtail, 3 Little Stints, 5 Dunlin and a lot more Ringed Plovers. We found out that a Green Sandpiper had just been flushed by a dog walker, so we dipped on that one!
we kept our distance from this Wood Sandpiper, hence the poor shot of it!!
Dunlin and a Little Stint
We spent a good 2-3 hours at the reservoir, enjoying the lovely sunshine and the bird-watching, we came away around 4:30pm and set off back to the hotel. For dinner we drove into a nearby village and ate at the local pub, it was delicious food and a nice pint of Cornish beer called 'Proper Job' went down well.