Sunday 15 February 2015

Saturday 14th February: Coming Down

I’m back down in my beloved Cornwall for a week en famille as it’s the half term holiday. Usually when I’m down at this time of year there isn’t much that I want to see but amazingly this time there were quite a few birds about that I need for my Cornwall list so I was keen to come down. To be specific, my target birds are: the Little  Bunting at Gulval, the Mandarin Duck at Drift, the Ring-billed Gull and possible American Herring Gull at Hayle, the King Eider at Maenporth, the American Wigeon (either near Newlyn or at Kingsmill near Plymouth) and the Bearded Tit at Marazion. In addition I was going to have a try for Jack Snipe (which I still need) just in case I could find one at a location I’d been told about. So plenty of things to chase after with varying chances of success and opportunity.

Our journey down yesterday was uneventful. Had it been me coming down on my own I’d have been off at first light and would have stopped off en route for the American Wigeon at  Kingsmill but instead we left late morning (the general inertia of getting four people ready to depart) and stopped off at Ikea in Bristol to pick up some items for the Cottage. This meant that we didn’t arrive until after dark so there was no chance to sneak in a cheeky twitch. Instead we did a spot of food shopping, got the cottage booted up and spent the evening inspecting the house to see what chores were going to need to be done. As I’ve said before, it’s always a bit of a busman’s holiday coming down to the cottage but just being back down here makes it all worth while.

I’d not brought my moth trap down with me but I did manage to find a few months dotted about the house. I think that they are Parsnip Moths though without my micro book and with several similar looking Depressaria species I’ll have to wait until I get home before ID’ing it.

Parsnip Moth?

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