Scilly - Day 8 - Snow Buntings

The track leading from St Edward’s road was once again blocked due to snow…..

bunting that is J An obliging bird indeed which only strayed from the track when a vehicle or dog arrived on the scene. Birders were quite content to grab plenty of images with the bird even coming within mobile phone range!

Here’s a few examples…..

The sun ever so briefly shone....

Close enough for a close up!

Adjustment of the feather finery!

This was the main aim of my morning - Lapland Bunting on Penninis......

Not bad for starters!

Scilly - day 8 - Jack Snipe

The walk from Penninis had turned up the first Fieldfare from the sea plus a few bits and pieces including Raven and Common Tern. I even found a Yellow-browed Warbler in conifers off the coast path just before Higher Moors.

Higher Moors was to produce another obliging bird in the form of this Jack Snipe - as close as you would want! Not an awful lot of variety .... busy feeding......

Spring loaded bobbing movements luckily not causing motion blur!

Grass or reeds as a backgound.....

Off looking for a comfortable place to snooze!

That will do very nicely!

Scilly - Day 7

A day on St Mary’s and a morning spent searching for something special resulted in just a Yellow-browed Warbler. The Newford Arctic Warbler appears to have gone now, hope it wasn’t down to the male Sparrowhawk seen zipping through there!

The afternoon was spent searching for a Richard’s Pipit which had been seen on the golf course (the 18^th hole wasn’t much help as we checked the ‘hole’ area) the tee was the original locality……

A Wryneck had been showing below the golf course and after staking out the last reported area, I got a lucky break when it landed ever so briefly (I got one image!) about 10m from where I was sitting!

The rest of the lads had, I suddenly realised, disappeared! A check of my phone revealed why…. A couple of texts – the Richard’s had been refound in a field over at Telegraph – I was off….

It was still there on arrival and I was put onto it straight away J Not a lifer but still a decent bird! I even got a record shot (pretty grim eh!)

 On the walk back, this stunning stonker of a Cricket caught my eye! This is for you Rob - Great Green Cricket?

Scilly - day 6 - Pelagic and Sora

With no new megas on offer, Jim was on pelagic duty again today in the hope of some good seabirds? MV Sapphire was duly boarded and set sail for the open seas around St Mary's…..

Who's driving this boat?

We had barely left harbour when close views of a Red-necked Grebe were on offer......

plus plenty of Shag! From then on, it was mainly Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls.....

trailing the boat in the hope of something better than bread on offer? Gannets were the next encounter.
A good spread of ages, from juvenile......

To second winter.....

Plus adults.

A lone Puffin was seen on the sea, Guillemot and Razorbill were also seen in flight later. The star of the show during the first couple of hours was a Sooty Shearwater, coming to within 100m of the boat,

at least four Balearic Shearwater plus a couple of Manxies were seen too.

As we trailed diced fish, the feeding intensity of the Gulls increased (including a 1w Yellow legged Gull), attracting the attention of several Great Skua, there must have been at least 10 seen over the trip. Here's a few closer encounters........

Locking onto the Gulls!

And not giving up until a free meal is forthcoming!!

We then had a real bonus bird – Grey Phalarope on the water plus a Great Northern Diver overhead, even a lone Kittiwake to keep the Scilly ticks coming….

Plenty of Dolphin action again too!

There’s one down side to being out on a pelagic, you are trapped there for six hours plus! With news of a Sora on Tresco coming out early afternoon and no boats possible after the pelagic returned, it was for a short while a bit of a downer. Luckily Joe Pender had a solution, a show of hands for a slightly early finish and then half the boat were dropped off…… on Tresco!

It was a bit of a hike from Carn Near quay to the Great Pool and when we got there, a few scopes were trained across the pool ….on the reed bed by the Swarowski hide – and there showing at the edge – one Sora!! Lifer number 5 for the trip….

I even got some record shots from the hide which was a real scrum but our pick up was an hour after the last official boat so we had the place to ourselves – with the Sora feeding on the open mud some 50m away….. Even got some record shots!

The bird log at the Scillonian, a pint or two and a Roast beef dinner later – perfect end to an exhilarating day….

Scilly - Day 4

An early morning session at Lower Moors gave decent views of the Bluethroat once again (never quite translating into a decent image however!)

The rest of the day was taken up with a pelagic on MV Sapphire.......

Birds were hard work but included Puffin (not easy at this time of year!) Razorbill, Great Skua, numerous Gannet and unexciting Gulls)

The highlight I think for everyone were the dolphins - Common Dolphin showing like I've never seen them before!! Often coming very close to the boat and leaping out of the water....

This one was bow-riding - you could almost reach out and touch....

Just once sequence, quite close, may well have produced the 'image burst' of the trip? Nicely side lit, this dolphin was caught in full flow :-)

A late return as the sun set over the sea.....

 Sunset over St Mary's. :-)

Sometimes, you don't need birds to have a good day!

Scilly - Day 3

Another good day with the morning started with the Purple Heron at Lower Moors and then intermittent good views of the Arctic Warbler at Newford Duckpond. The airfield turned up a Short-toed Lark which we all got from near the terminal building........ no lifers today and nothing in the way of images sadly although some record shots were taken of the latter two birds.

I'm having mega problems with wifi access and this is just a brief test at another B&B. I can't even update the bird lists but that seems to be another issue! Who knows when / if another post will emerge.......

Hayle - Black-winged Stilt

It's Scilly adventure......  day -1. The 'high' of a  monumentally wet drive to Penzance was this Black-winged Stilt still present late afternoon at Hayle estuary. A couple of record shots......

They are all somewhat similar but what the heck - here's three more.......

The 'low' was a monumentally pancake like tyre when I returned to the car (and too late to get it repaired after I'd changed the wheel!

The Scillonian beckons tomorrow morning and there's a bit of an angry sea out there...... I'll try and keep regular posts / images coming. We shall see :-)