I had taken annual leave to look after my daughter during half term whilst my wife was away. A month or so before I was asked if we could go on a road trip somewhere so I suggested a few coastal localities. Cornwall was picked as the favoured destination so off we went.
The forecast was good and the weather glorious as we made our way to the SW peninsula, first bird of note was a sleeping Spoonbill on Ryan’s Field, Hayle Estuary, we never stopped, it was seen from the A30 as we passed!
Seeing as we were in the area I stopped at Treeve Common, Trevescan for a quick search for the Grey Catbird that had been about, it hadn’t been showing so we headed off to the picturesque valley of Porthgwarra for a walk with the dogs. This sheltered spot was ideal as it was warm and sunny so we pottered about stopping to look at birds and insects. After a stop for food supplies we popped back to see if the Catbird was showing and it was, the bird was very obliging giving prolonged scope views atop the brambles before flying towards us and diving back into cover, having seen this skulking species in the USA, I thought it best to accept the great views we just had. It looked very healthy and bright eyed and is still present at the time of writing on 27 October.
We had a nose from Land’s End before visiting Cape Cornwall where Chough’s and Gannet were the highlights and then on to another of my favourite valleys at Nanjizal to watch the sunset. We decided to head for Lanyon Quoit (remnants of a burial chamber, the remaining stone skeleton) to see the moonrise but not before spotting a roadside Barn Owl flying ‘through the moon’ along the way, this bird was near Pendeen. A good end to the day, we had run out of time so we left for our main destination on the Lizard, we were staying in Mullion. A top notch dinner and comfy room rounded off a delightful autumn day.
Next day was again sunny so we explored the nearby Poldhu Cove (Cetti’s Warbler and Chiffchaff ), Lizard Point (six White Wagtails among the Pied Wagtails and Meadow Pipits and we saw Rock Pipits galore). We had a great walk looking through common birds for migrants and checking the pond at Housel Bay and then headed for the Croft Pascoe Pool near Goonhilly. Sadly the wind was blowing and very strong so our intended target- the rare Vagrant Emperor dragonfly never showed, plenty of Common Darters but not quite warm enough for the larger species. We had been checking the sheltered spots wherever we went for this species hoping to find our own as a mini invasion was on.
An afternoon at Gweek Seal Sanctuary was interesting as well as the seals we saw Little Egrets, Kingfisher, 4 Greenshank and 12 Redshank on the adjacent estuary creek. Another quick stop at Stithian’s Reservoir offered a number of wetlands species, I’d never seen the water levels so low here. This was our last stop of the day before heading home.
Anserbirding 
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