'STANDING STONES FIELD' - LOWER MOORS - PORTHCRESSA AND SALLY PORT - TRANSFER TO PENZANCE
WEATHER; cloudy with some sunshine. Light winds
The return trip on the Scillonian III ship was brought forward by 3 1/2 hours due to a strong wind weather forecast, so now we were sailing at 1pm instead of 4:30pm. This reduced our birding time on this last morning.
Most of the group wanted to try to get better views of Yellow-browed Warbler, we knew that two were still being seen at Lowers Moors, one in the Standing Stones Field and the other near the 'blind' at Shooter's Pool. The Standing Stones Field was just 500 meters down the hill from our guest house, it took us just a few minutes to get there.
Red-backed Shrike taken by Phil Naylor
We found a Red-backed Shrike in the field, one of two, still in the area, but our search for a Wryneck went unrewarded. The first Yellow-browed Warbler site was quite sheltered from the breeze and we were hopeful of seeing it. However, after 30 minutes we had found half a dozen Chiffchaffs, one of them was singing, but no YB Warblers! We also saw some common garden birds.
At Shooter's Pool we watched more Chiffchaffs, several were coming down to bathe and we hoped that the YB Warbler would do the same. Alas it did not! We saw Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Moorhen, Goldcrest and not a lot else.
We contiued our walk through Lower Moors and back into town via Porth Mellon beach and finally to Porthcressa. Our last birding on the islands was a search for the Black Redstart on the rocks at Port Sally. Once again I was thwarted and remained the only member of the group to have NOT seen a Black Redstart!!
Porth Mellon this morning where we saw Turnstones, Oysetrcatchers and Ringed Plovers
At this point we said goodbye to Phil, Sue and Roger, they were flying back to the mainland a little later. Four of us took the return trip to Penzance on the Scillonian, it was much better than the outward journey. This was because the sea-state was much calmer and the birding was excellent. We had constant views of Cory's Shearwaters, we saw small rafts of Great Shearwaters, a few manx Shearwaters, lots of Gannets, Kittiwakes and a few Common Dolphins. Birders on the Port side of the ship had views of two groups of Storm Petrels, I missed them! as I stuck rigidly to the Starboard side.
just to rub salt into my wound - Phil took this picture of a Black Redstart after we had departed!
As we approached Penzance a Balearic Shearwater appeared, all the birders on the boat had good views of it, two of my group were downstairs at the time and so missed it.
We docked a little late at 4:10 and I had a bit of a rush to catch my train at 4:50 but managed it. The trip was over, we all went our separate ways with some happy memories of a lovely trip.