Lands End

I had half a day birding at Lands End today before heading home to catch up on work....


It was nice to see a variety of common migrants and to hear and see my first Lesser Whitethroat of the year. Wheatear's where in better numbers than usual with 25 spotted , I also saw the hybrid Crow x Hooded Crow which is a good learning bird and definitely not pure when compared with the Hoody seen at Trevose Head earlier in the spring...

Grey on the mantle would extend further down the back if it was a pure Hoody

It has the oak leaf pattern on the breast but in a pure bird the grey would extend beyond the breast all the way to the undertail coverts, I have seen similar birds in central Scotland in the past...

Spring Birding on The Lizard

It's been too long since I've written on the blog but now I've finished writing the Gull section of the CBWPS bird report I have my life back! And some spare writing time....

I have a long weekend off so I wanting to make the most of the fine weather I headed to the Lizard today. It was so picturesque down there and whilst I had to work hard for the birds I saw it was a pretty good day. Numbers of common migrants are still very low though , maybe they are just moving straight through in the fine weather?

Dartford Warbler in the distance

Despite it being an hours drive from home I was birding by 6:45am and started my day at Lizard Point. Most of the decent sightings I had were over the sea with 2 Great Northern Divers and a variety of waders moving through early on. Even though the land was quiet I enjoyed watching a Woodchat Shrike perched up on a hedgerow and at times it was swooping down and hovering over the ploughed field next to the village. They really are stunning birds and after a few years without seeing one I have now seen two Woodchat's this spring. It only showed for 10 minutes in the early morning and despite a fair bit of searching I couldn't track it down. Interestingly I bumped into Tony Blundon and he thought it could be a new bird in ( as the Woodchat from earlier in the week hadn't been seen for a few days), hopefully he saw it later in the day but my gut was that it moved straight through.

The rest of the morning was slow but in the fine weather it didn't matter, it was just nice to be out walking, I visited Caerthillian Cove, Kynance Cove and Windmill Farm without seeing too much. On the way to Goonhilly I chanced upon a female Redstart near Ruan Minor which was a nice year tick...

I spent the whole afternoon scanning for raptors at Goonhilly Downs and whilst I only saw Buzzards, Kestrels and Sparrowhawks I was still lucky with other birds. My first two Cuckoos of the year where calling all the time and I had some flight views too, it's always nice to see one.  Last but not least a Little Ringed Plover flew over Croft Pascoe Pool calling. On the walk back I guess it was nice to see an Adder even if I did nearly stand on it! There where a couple of frustrating moments today too , a large raptor at Windmill Farm was probably a Red Kite but in the heat haze I couldn't be sure enough to claim it, also a darter type Dragonfly at Croft Pascoe was probably a Red-veined given the time of year but again the views were not good enough to claim it, still I saw a fair bit and it was a lovely day out so no complaints!