PORTHLOO – TELEGRAPH – MAYPOLE – NORMANDY – PORTH HELLIC – PORTH HELLIC POOL – HOLY VALE – LONGSTONE – CAREG DHU – LOWER MOORS – OLD TOWN BEACH
WEATHER: a complete change today, we had high winds all day, rain early morning and then late afternoon more rain. Top temp 17C
No blue skies and hot sunshine to brag about today, we had real autumnal weather and despite that we had a better birding day!
A Red-throated Diver was reported during breakfast at Porthloo, well, we were going that way anyway! So we marched down past Porth Mellon and round to Porthloo where we set up our scopes and scanned the sea.
this picture is deceptive - it does not show the very windy conditions. Porthloo beach
There was no sign of the Diver (later we heard that it had been a Shag mis-identified, ha!). We did find a Whimbrel asleep on the beach with a single Bar-tailed Godwit and the usual array of Oystercatchers, Ruddy Turnstones and Ringed Plovers. We scanned the rocky island and picked out a dozen or so of Sandwich Terns, some Med Gulls and a Curlew.
the Whimbrel
All the gulls and terns took to the air as a Peregrine dashed over the bay. Other species seen were Rock Pipits, White Wagtails, Goldfinches and Greenfinches.
We then walked up the steep climb to the Golf Course to look for a couple of Turtle Doves. The doves had been feeding in ‘rolled’ fields along the approach road to the Golf Course, but they were not there now.
We then set off to Telegraph, the highest point on the island, two more Turtle Doves had been seen there, we found one of them as soon as we arrived. The bird was flushed with a couple of Collared Doves but it soon reappeared and sat nicely in tree not too far away.
Turtle Dove with Collared Doves
With the Dove in the bag we walked around to Normandy to look for a couple of Glossy Ibis and once again, the birds behaved themselves and remained in sight in the place where they were last reported. We had excellent views of one of them and distant views of the other one.
a juvenile Glossy Ibis
We back-tracked a little to visit the lovely café at Carn Vean, coffee and cake went down well. As we walked along the driveway to the café a merlin flew across the field next to the café.
From there we walked to the coastal track at Porth Hellick, the tide was low but the sea was in complete turmoil, huge waves were breaking against the rocks. We noted a dozen or so of Ringed Plovers, a Greenshank and lots of Gannets out over the sea.
Common Snipe and Dunlin seen on Porth Hellick Pool
We viewed Porth Hellick Pool from the Stephen Sussex Hide where we noted that the water was a little too high. Nevertheless, we did some birds, a few Moorhens, a Grey heron, a Little Grebe, a single Common Snipe which was tagging along with a Dunlin.
The walk through Holy Vale went quickly because we didn’t stop at all to look at birds because there wasn’t any! We followed the path through the woods to Longstone Café and down to Carreg Dhu gardens where we spent some time looking for a Firecrest which failed to appear, I’m not surprised because the wind was now quite intense.
Our walk through Lower Moors was noteworthy because we found the caterpillar of the Convolvulus Hawk Moth, it was huge! Sitting in the hide we saw distant Grey Heron in flight and a single Common Snipe in the reeds.
Convolvulus Hawk Moth caterpillar
Old Town Bay held some gulls and a few Sandwich Terns, the Gannets were almost on top of us because the wind was so strong. From there we walked up the hill back to our guest house. Some news came out that a Little Bunting had been found very close to our guest house. Lyn went to look for it but drew a blank as the bird had flown off.
It hadn’t been a bad day, we had achieved most of our goals and the windy/rainy conditions didn’t ruin our birding as much as we expected it to.