Monday 31st October. Ireland. With two ticks in Ireland it seemed the best option was to ignore the Scillies Chimney Swift and go for the 3+Chimmey Swifts and Myrtle Warbler in Ireland.
Mick Frosdick & I got on the Easy Jet flight from Gatwick (£104 return) at 7:55 and arrived at Cork at around 9:00am. We met up with Stuart Piner (he arrived on Ryan Air from Stansted) in Cork and we then picked up the Limo.
Everybody was buzzing with excitement. Stewart & I were so exciting about the trip that neither of us managed to get any sleep the night before. In future I've really got to tell myself that I’ve got no chance getting the bird…..This has got to make me sleep, hasn't it??!! Any ideas?
While driving the car out of the compound Chris Batty informed Stuart Piner that the Myrtle Warbler was still present on Cape Clear. Hoooorrrrrayyyyyyyy!!!
On the way to ferry at Baltimore, we stopped at Connaugh Village and Clonakilty to check for yesterdays Chimney Swits. Unfortunately no sign of any Swifts at either.
Still feeling upbeat and we all decided at this stage that the Myrtle Warbler is the rarer of the two and we would always have a chance in going for Scillies Chimney if we fail in Ireland. Onwards and upwards we near Baltimore and then we hear that there are also no Chimney Swifts at Baltimore either.
Well at least we should get a Myrtle Warbler in the bag??!! Mick speaks to Harry Hussey and finds out that a special boat charter has been arranged to visit the Cape from Schull. The boat is due to leave at 11:30am and come back around 5:00pm. This seemed like a good option considering that the scheduled service from Baltimore would involve an overnight stay. So we decided to go on the charter.
On arrival in Schull we meet up with the 15 Irish lads and board the boat. The journey to the Cape took about 45 minutes.
On approaching the harbour we see a birder scoping a bird in the harbour. We all pray it’s the Warbler!
I get off the boat first and we have a speed walk to the lone birder. At this stage I’ve only walked 200 meters and my shins are starting to hurt….I ask "What are you looking at?", the birder calmly says a "Grey-cheeked Thrush". Well what a bird it was feeding as close as 3 meters away. As this bird was not a lifer for me, I really wanted to move on to Myrtle Warbler. None of the 18 spent more than a minute at this stage looking at the Thrush. We all rushed to the area the Warbler had been seen in.
After about 5 minutes we arrived at the beach where it had been feeding. Some of our party had got there before me and they were all pointing and scoping something on the beach…. Adrenaline started to pump and I hastily took my rucksack off my back….I took if off a little too quick as all the straps perished with my pent up energy. I got the scope set up on what everybody was looking at……… a flaming Rock Pipit. The Myrtle Warbler apparently was on show for 1.5 hours from 9am, then the bird hopped into someone’s garden and had not been seen since our arrival on the Island at 12:30. Never mind I thought our party consisted of 18 and there was at least 5 birders staying on the Cape, so there was a good chance it was going to re-located before our 5pm departure. It never re-showed but there was a nice Grey Phalarope within a 2-min walk. We ended the day just watching the Grey-cheeked Thrush.
On the boat back to Schull, news breaks off 3 Chimney Swifts at Courtmacsherry. Well at this stage the good news was that our plane was departing Cork on Tuesday back to Gatwick. So at least we had a chance for these reported birds.
Next morning we spend a good hour looking for the Blue Clearwater sign on the crossroads between Courtmacsherry and Broad Strand. This was the exact point the birds had been seen the previous night.
Eventually we found this sign. It was in a new housing estate that we must have drove past 5-6 times. But were the birds there? No
We drove to the beach at Courtmacsherry and had a scan. Stuart Piner shouts out "I’ve got them". I had a mini heartache and the usual happens, I could not see the birds for love or money as I was shaking too much. Then Mick gets onto them and says "Get onto them Quickly…they are getting higher and higher… they seem to be leaving." At this stage, I screamed "Give me a bloody landmark". Someone says near the Telegraph pole, I eventually find the right Telegraph pole and then hug Stuart for finding these little beauties with his incredible sharp eyesight.
We then watched the 3 Chimney Swits for the next 2-3 hours. They were simply amazing they seemed to have a really unusual flight action. Seemed to look like and fly like bats. And those of you that like Aeroplanes, they also resemble Stealth Fighters.
On occasions, all 3 birds were on view in the same telescope view.
I tried to get some photographs and because these birds flew so fast I managed to get loads of photographs of beautiful white clouds on a beautiful blue sky. These cloud photographs can be purchased at £2.50 plus 50p for packaging!!!!…Then I discovered sports mode on my camera. Well this was amazing, I practiced on a Jackdaw and managed to get a snap of it, then I managed to get a Chimney Swift in the top Left-hand corner of the picture.
The rest of the day was spent looking for American Golden Plovers and American Wigeon. Couldn’t find any but did manage to see Lesser Yellowlegs for a second time.
What a trip, absolutely magic. Got home at 11:00pm Tuesday night.
The trip averaged out a £149 each.
Scilly trip. Left my house after the very disappointing 0-0 Liverpool v Chelsea match. Picked up John Benham from Leatherhead and I drove non-stop to Drift. I had a couple of hours sleep in a very comfortable B&B, which is free of charge incidentally. At 7:00am we walked to the hide and the juv Long-billed Dowitcher perfomed well to the assembled crowd.
On the Scillonain III journey we managed to see 2 Arctic Skuas and 4 Manx Shearwaters and John saw a large shearwater which eluded me.
We docked at 12:15 and got on the 12:30 boat to St. Agnes. The walk to the Blackpoll Warbler (455th BI tick) was a mere 10 minutes. It was very bright sunny day and the bird was showing on arrival to departure. No sign of the Greenish Warbler though. Apparently it had only showed for once since first boat.
A 5 min walk to the sea awarded me with my best ever views of the numerous Baird's Sand I have seen in Britain, it was showing down to 20 feet. See the fantastic photographs on my website.
We left St. Agnes at 2pm and made our way for the Sora on St. Mary's. The bird eventually showed at 3:30pm and we then raced for the Sicillonian back to Penzance.
No birds on the inbound leg apart...well apart from 2 stunners in the bar.
Stayed the night at Drift and was greeted at 7am to thick fog. Next stop was Marazion. Complete waste of time if you want to see the Spotted Crakes they only show first thing and last thing everyday. The viewing area only shows a small area that the Crakes frequent. The area they apparently show is to close to the fenced off area you wait from. The constant chatting of the visiting birders was too close for the Crake to feel confident enough to feed in....in my opinion.
We did manage to see the 1st year drake Ring-necked Duck. It only shows when feeding in the small pool from the bridge. It spends most of its time hiding in the surrounding reeds. A Water Rail showed very briefly from a large concrete stone on route to the hide.
Got home at 8:15pm, with £62 less in my piggybank.
. After the MEGA alert at 7:23am of Lesser-crested Tern in Norfolk, I made some inquiries and found out it was found by Paul Lee, whilst walking his dog. Considering Paul Lee has an exceptional record of finding rarites I had no choice but to give it go. This would not please my wife. She has been reassured that no birds turn up in Britain to late September. How wrong can I be....Sooty Tern, Barrow's Goldeneye, Trumpeter Finch etc etc.
The last twitchable Lesser-crested Tern was "Elsie" in the Northumberland Farnes, which was in the days that I did not twitch outside the Southeast. Why? Why? Why?
Ian Barnard got to my house at 9:00am Saturday morning, and just the two of us went to Norfolk. We did not think we would have much chance in re-located the bird so we spent the day birding in the interior. At 4:45am Geoff & Alan Clewes refound the bird flying west at Overstrand.
Fortunately Ian and I were still in North Norfolk at this time, so we drove as fast as possible to Cley.
We got to Cley at 5:45pm and you guessed it we missed it by 11 minutes. Andy Stoddard saw the bird fly over the beach, this was missed by many assembled birders watching with their scopes from the beach at Cley.
I decided to walk to the Blakeney Point Sandwich Tern colony. The walk took 1.5 hours each way and it is impossible to get views of the 1600 Sandwich Terns that breed there unless permission is granted.
Ian and I decided to spend the night in Norfolk. There was no point getting a B&B. Reasons being:-
1. First light is at 4:00am and you really would not be getting value for money.
2. Keeping the twitching cheap gets valuable browny points with "her in doors", also known as the "Boss".
We got up Sunday morning around 4:15am and started sea watching at Cromer. At 5:40am my Sussex compatriot "Ian the lucky bugger Barnard" found it flying east, Alan & Geoff Clewes managed to get views aswell. But I got in a total panic...and ran around like a headless chicken. I ran over to where Ian was sitting had a scan with my bins and saw three Terns (not tickable views) so ran back to my scope and Lesser-crested Tern at this stage was in front of the sun. I simply missed tickable views. The other three were celebrating.
Ian spent the rest of the day feeling like how I wanted to feel. But Ian was quite prepared for a gruelling day in order for me to see this bird.
Later on that morning I met a guy called Ben who's local patch was Overstrand. Ian & I teamed up with Ben and went searching for the Tern. Ben thought the bird would only get as far as the rocks at Sea Palling.
So off we treck, no sign. Ben went back to get his barbeque started and we drove back towards Cromer for the evening fly past. At 9:33am the bird was seen at Happisburgh between 9:20am and 9:30am. At this stage we were slight NW of the bird, so we decided to stay put. For the next 2.5 hours pager messages of possible sightings were occuring. We finally connected at 11:55am at Waxham.
We watched the Tern sit on the rocks til 13:00pm and then decided to go home...Well how's does the saying go "All comes to those that wait". Well thats certainly been the case on the last two tern twitches.
Total cost £45 petrol, £2 tolls & £0.70 parking.
. Anglesey. Ian Barnard, Christian Melgar, John Lees, John Benham & I decided to drive to Anglesey for the Sooty Tern. We left my house at 11:00pm and arrived at Holyhead 5:00am. We met up with Steve Nuttall, Steve Richards, Ian Butler and a guy called Chris from the Staffs area who decided to join us in hiring a speed boat to get to the Skerries.
Most boats take from 40 to 90 minutes from Amlwch, Cemaes and Holyhead to get to the Skerries, but fortunately the boat I hired only took 15 minutes to get from Holyhead to Skerries.
Our charter departed at 5:45am and arrived just after 6:00am. When we arrived at the islands there were about 10 charter boats out there with many depressed birdwatchers aboard them. The Sooty Tern was reported to have roosted on the Skerries from 8:30pm the previous evening and there was a report that it also flew out to sea. However there was no sign of this Tern this morning. Boats had arrived from 5am and searched the island to 2pm. We stayed around the Skerries to 9:45am. During our time out there we had magnificent views of 2 Roseate Terns, 300+ Arctic Terns, 100+ Puffins to name but a few of the highlights.
Back on the mainland we decided to search the areas the Sooty Tern had previously visited. We started our search from Rhosneiger at Ynys Feirig RSPB. The reserve is a long Island strip which can be viewed at a range of 1.5miles. We stayed here 4 hours, with the best birds being a brunette in a green bathing costume with very impressive assets.
We left here onto South Stack. Here we encountered 20+ Chough feeding very close to the road. Next stop was Holyhead ferry terminal where we saw 6 Black Guillemots.
Time was getting on and we now thought there was no chance of the Sooty Tern being relocated. We left Anglesey at 6pm and Ian Barnard started the six hour drive home. At 7pm my mobile rang, it was Mark Lopez excitingly saying that Richard Bonser had relocated the Sooty Tern back on the Skerries. Ian turned the car around immediately and drove as fast as possible back to Holyhead. I in the meantime feeling extremely stressed out rang around and tried to book the re-book the boat we had earlier in the day. So I rang Aubrey on 07866014393 and he said he could get it ready in 30minutes, I said that would be fine and I said the earliest we could arrive was about 8:00pm. I rang RBA to advertise 4 spaces on our boat and what followed was 10 calls one after each trying to get the four spaces. This all happened in a 3 minute period. I then rang back RBA to say four seats had gone. Our first lucky caller was Andrew Lawson’s party containg Gary Howard, James Hunter and Steve Nixon. We naturally gave them the four spaces. They was still on the island and got to the boat before us. They got to the boat at 7:30pm and desparately waiting for us. We arrived at 7:55pm feeling like we had just won the lottery and our boat went immediately. We got to the Skerries at 8:15pm and we were greeted this time by three boats full of smiling birdwatchers. The Sooty Tern was sitting on the rocks closer to the Kittiwake colony than the Arctic Tern colony. Gary Howard managed to get wonderful close shots of the Tern. I managed to get a record shot, but what a relief. The Sooty Tern was still on view when we left at 9:00pm. On the way back another slow boat was making its way to the Skerries which Paul Hackett had chartered.
We all felt that a great weight had been lifted and we all posed for a group photograph.
We left Holyhead at 9:45pm and got home at 4am Sunday morning(including a McDonald stop). The trip costed £51 each (includes two Boat rides).
If you haven’t been for the Sooty Tern yet, I suggest you book an early morning boat and late evening boat as the bird can disappear during the day. Be careful about booking your boat as some of the boats are illegal and they are asking upto £35 each per passenger for a 3 hour trip, giving only one hour on the Skerries. We found our boat man the best value for money with a four hour trip costing just £150 and with ability in being able to take 9 people.
