Cornwall - Pre Scillies Musings

Rose-coloured Starling - Eastern Greens

After an overnight drive down to Cornwall first stop was the Eastern Greens area of Penzance where I immediately found the juvenile Rose-coloured Starling on wires by KFC. If anyone is going for this bird it is pretty faithful to the wires on the north side of the KFC car park. It often gets spooked and flushes but repeatedly comes back to the same area.

Next stop was Porthgwarra to have a look for the Red-breasted Flycatcher, Subalpine Warbler, Hood Crow, Yellow-browed Warbler, Firecrest and Turtle Dove all of which have been seen in the area over the past few days. Sadly the only bird I saw was the Subalpine Warbler and the views were truly pants. It flicked around in a bush for a few seconds and then was seen in flight flying into the Doctor's House garden.

Chough - Cot Valley

Chough - Cot Valley

From here I walked from Cape Cornwall to nearly Sennen before I finally ticked Chough in Britain. I was determined not to hunt a Chough down just to tick it but after about 10 trips to likely areas in Cornwall it was starting to piss me off so today was the day! After this I went for seconds of the Rose-coloured Starling before finishing off back at Porthgwarra looking for the Red-breasted Flycatcher but still no luck.

Stonechat - Cape Cornwall

A feature of the day was the constant appearance of Stonechats in a variety of different habitats. I guess some of them are migrants rather than being just established territories and the fledglings from this year.