Faux Yellow Billed Loon fiasco.

Popped over Hayle today to visit a friend and managed to sneak away from ‘womanly chatter’ to wander around the Estuary. As I stood watching a L. Grebe a couple of twitchers walked on over. Apparently the White Billed Diver had been spotted in the estuary yesterday morn.

I helped identify the lone diver that was causing all the fuss (more twitchers turned up) and broke the sad news it was just a Great Northern. An over zealous birder obviously got carried away when identifying… I just hope they didn’t add it to their life list…

Although, as luck would have it for me, I hadn’t seen the GN Diver this year, so it’s another one for my 07 list.

Bugging & reptiles: Spring is here!

Another wonderful day of sunshine fell upon the land of Cornwall, and whilst Tracee went on a training course, so I took the time to wander around some new areas not yet been trod by my trainers.

The initial point of insertion was a playing field just on the outskirts of Camborne Town centre. Woodpigeons busied themselves collecting twigs & Gold/Greenfinches just flew around… but other than that, not much was doing. I observed on the walk to the field a public footpath just before the entrance, so I went on a ramble down the mysterious corridor in search of something magical and altogether more interesting.

Shield bugs had begun to make a welcome return to the hedgerows and it did seem that finally spring was upon us. A butterfly was briefly spotted (and this time not a Peacock!) but I didn’t have time to classify it. Ladybirds had also started to appear and various bees and hoverflies meandered down the lane.

Another welcome site was a trio of lizards basking in the late morning sun.

Later on in the day we visited a friend and her lovely cats, I spent most of the time wandering around her garden where I managed to find only one interesting creature; a Crab Spider (Misumena vatia) enjoying some brunch.

Pendarves Wood: Creepers & Peckers.

Today was pitched by the MET office as a blue sky and full on sunshine affair, thus, it was with this prediction I planned an outing to Penny Woods. The MET office had not been wrong…

I arrived at the woods at around 8am (after a 30 minute walk) and immediately heard a woodpecker doing what comes naturally. I attempted to head towards the noise, but found that knee deep mud and overgrown flora quickly stopped me in my tracks.

My first stop was at the lake. A Cormorant (or was it a shag… never really paid much attention to it… probably not the latter) was gleefully floating around. Moorhens foraged around in the weed and a Coot was busy building a nest in a small reed bed situated 20 meters out into the lake. The swans too had their nesting area ready and I managed to film them mating in order to fill it. A couple of Mallards pottered around at the rear and a duo of L. Grebes sat in the weeds.

The lake rarely holds any surprises, which is a shame as it’s so close by. The Tufted Ducks have moved on and the Teal, which made an emergency landing during bad weather, has long since fluttered off.

I continued my walk around, filming what I could. I managed to capture a Wren showing off to a female and also managed to badly film a ChiffChaff.

Back at the lake, this time on my hands and knees crawling around so not to be spotted, apart from by the swans who came over to see what I was and if I was carrying any bread (Johnny Kingdom aint got a thing on me). As I lay on the ground, filming one of the swans, a Treecreeper landed on the tree next to me. I managed to roll on my back and film him for a moment, but he was backlit from the sun and to compensate the gamma had to be turned up to 11. This in turn meant the quality wasn’t very good, but hey ho, it’s another tick on my 2007 list.

As for insect life, this was still pretty thin on the ground. Another month and it will be action stations for me and my camera, but until then I shall have to contend with;

Bumble Bees still dominated the arthropod sightings; a peacock was still the only flippin’ butterfly to be found and a possible Syrphus Ribesii (that be a Hoverfly don’t ya know) was busy feeding on some Japanese Knotweed… how exotic.

Throughout the entire trip the Woody kept pecking away…

Filming & the mocking of chiffchaffs; Swanpool.

The other day I began work on my garden birds’ video compilation. This venture into home video producing will eventually, give or take a month, make it onto YouTube. The still below shows a Blue Tit apparently... this nest box is not ours, it's in a neighbouring garden...

I have asked on Freecycle if anyone is getting rid of a tripod, as mine is now 15 years old and doesn’t have the smooth action it was once famed for having. Thus, this creates a problem when filming birds ‘on the move’ as resulting video footage looks like dodgy stop frame animation.

The problem became more annoying when trying to film the non-stop LT Tits whilst down at Swanpool this avvy.

Not much could be found at Swanpool unfortunately. Numerous Mallards, BH Gulls and plenty of Coots mooched around. The odd Moorhen popped out now and again and some Herring Gulls stopped by once in a while. A swan was tucked away in the reeds and plenty of Great Tits, Robins, Dunnocks, LT Tits and Chaffinches hung around in the trees flanking the waters edge.

I could hear the odd sporadic Chiffchaff, but for one reason or another could not find the bleeder.

17/3/07: Tits with long tails & Divers with White Bills.

Excursion number one: Praze Bridleway.
The first excursion of the day saw me wandering off to my 1^st patch (A bridleway in Praze) at 7.45am. A sense of hopefulness drifted in the air and there was some expectation that it was me secreting it. You see, the other day I heard what I can 80% say was a Hoopoe, so this was a mission to find the migrant visitor…

Pheasants could be heard a plenty, but for the main part there was not much doing other than the obligatory great tits, wrens & chaffinches. The only interesting part of this early morning stint was being able to watch a pair of Long Tailed Tits making a nest.

On the walk home a Buzzard landed in the field. Although not an overly interesting fact in itself (apart from me trying to metamorphosis it into a Ruff Legged one so I can add it to my 2007 list) it did turn out to be the pale variant of your familiar Buzzard.

No Hoopoe.

Excursion number two: Hayle Estuary
This was a late trip, as by the time I arrived at the estuary it was already getting on for 5pm (if not already on it). My mission was to spot the Great Northern Diver & the White Billed Diver (the latter being a very rare visitor).

Luckily, as soon as I jumped out of the car, I noticed a fellow twitcher pointing his scope at a potential White Billed, which in fact it was. The gentlemen’s name was James (I believe) and although he will probably never read this blog, I thank him for allowing my eyes to peer through the scope at such a wonderful bird.

James informed me that a pair of Great Northerns and a couple of Razorbills had been spotted along the stretch we were currently on, so after a few minutes of watching the White Billed I wandered up towards the estuary opening in the hopes of adding a few more birds to my list.

In the diminishing light I spotted a couple of shags, but nothing more could be seen apart from compulsory seagulls and the odd passing rook/raven/crow/jackdaw.

By the time I made it back to the initial arrival point, James and the White Billed had gone, so I ventured into the Copperhouse part of the estuary (tide in) and managed to see nothing more than an Egret and a sleepy swan.

Back to the other side again. I decided at this point not to bother heading anywhere else, so I parked my bottom on the estuary wall, dangled my legs over the edge and after a few minutes spotted the WB again. He came in very close, only perhaps 20 meters away, and there we stayed together for almost an hour, him cleaning himself and me smoking a cigarette.

2007 List & a YouTube video

I have uploaded a YouTube video. It’s a small slideshow of some of the arthropods I photographed last year. I selected a random 26 of the hundreds of photos I have, loaded up Windows Movie Maker and created the so far un-rated video you will hopefully rate…

The Cornwall Arthropod YouTube Video

My UK2007 list is now situated at the bottom of the Blog... see bottom for the UK2007 List at the bottom.

13/03/07 Rinsey Cove: Sods Law Part 1

Finally, the bitter chill of winter has passed by and what appears to be an air of the seasonal delights known as spring is now upon us. The winter melancholy has gone astray and I can once again kneel down in the freshening mud photographing twigs. The first ‘trip’ out was to Rinsey Cove, a National Trust doodar situated near Praa Sands. This venture was not really meant to be a wholly birding/bugging expedition, but as a ‘let the dog stretch her legs and eat a picnic with the loved one’. Anyway, I am glad it wasn’t the former…

The Bird Report.
A screw came loose on my binoculars making it difficult to spot anything, as the fault caused double vision. Utilising stealth tactics I learnt at the tender age of 10 whilst raiding the fridge at 4am, I eventually came upon a bird I was stalking for a good 5 minutes, which turned out to be robin.

The Bug Report
The worst butterfly in my opinion to photograph close up, due to its 'shy' nature, is the peacock and (as it seems sods law is generally against me today) the only butterfly present was the peacock. The occasional bumblebee flew past and there was one or two hoverflies knocking around, but nothing special. I did manage to disturb a Tiger Beetle (see photo below) and was also pleasantly surprised to find a tick crawling around on the picnic blanket.

…and in conclusion.
It was the first day I could walk around in my combats without the need to wear a coat to keep the nipples warm. Plenty of dogs to stroke, a bird of prey (hitting the glare of the sun and impossible to identify with bust binoculars) and some unattainable birds somewhere else, taunting me with their ‘cheeps’ and ‘chirps’… probably some monotonous tits… The taponade Tracee made was wonderful.