Although, seeing plenty of seabirds around the UK, I have not to-date tried a significant sea-watch from mainland Cornwall in what is deemed the peak season (mid-July to end of August). That is until today, 1st August. In Sussex we are rather used to meagre pickings from Selsey Bill when a single Shearwater would get watchers bouncing up and down with joy. As with all seabirds, planning a watch can be unpredictable and is rather wind and weather dependent so planning too far in advance is potentially a waste of time, so at the weekend Paul Bowley and I committed to try for the Tuesday which looked ok from a wind point of view with keeping the option open to do another day on Wednesday if we had drawn a blank on the Tuesday. We left my place at midnight and a smooth drive down had us being the first in the car park at Porthgwarra at 5.30am just as light was starting to appear.
We walked up toward Gwenapp head so we could view the 'Runnel Stone' - a wreck marker about 1 mile offshore, and settled in for a sea-watch. Within half an hour, without much on the move, the weather closed in with rain and low cloud eliminating any visibility, which lasted for a good hour. However once the front had blown through and the cloud lifted the birds started to move and over the next 4-5 hours our counts and estimates were as follows ;
Cory's Shearwater 1,000+
Great Shearwater 12+
Sooty Shearwater 8+
Manx Shearwater c10,000
Balearic Shearwater 1
Storm Petrel c20+
Gannet 200+
Arctic Skua 2
Great Skua 1
Puffin 5
Fulmar c20
Kittiwake c30+
Other birds around included Red-billed Chough, Wheatear, Stonechat, Linnet, Rock Pipit, Meadow Pipit, Peregrine.
The spectacle was astonishing, having not experience anything like this in the UK before. We went back to the car around 2pm for a comfort break, then headed back up to the cliffs around 3pm for another 2 hours. The birds became even more numerous in this period with varying estimates of up to 3,000 Cory's Shearwaters and 100 Great Shearwaters
In addition to the above the following were recorded
Fea's-type Petrel 1
Pomarine Skua 3
We headed of towards Penzance for an overnight when the heavens opened and would continue throughout the night. We decided the day could not be bettered so made our way back to Sussex the next morning and we very happy re-living the spectacle of the previous day.
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| Mr Bowley waiting for the rush of Shearwaters. |
Black Down can be quite good in August for warblers and flycatchers on the move, so I had been keen to increase my morning visits to see if there had been any significant falls of birds. It had been underwhelming until the 16th when there was a reasonable overnight fall and I recorded 3 Wheatear, 25+ Willow Warbler, 4 Redstart, 3 Spotted Flycatcher, 5 Tree Pipit and the best of all for this place a Whinchat.
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| Wheatear in the heather |
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| Wheatear |
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| Spotted Flycatcher |
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| Whinchat |
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| Whinchat |
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| Wheatears |
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