Thursday 4 September 2014

Not all at sea

A recent visit to the Isles of Scilly was mainly for pelagic trips - but it wasn't all rolling about on the high seas - some of the time was spent on dry land, wandering around the wader hotspots of St Mary's in the hope of turning up a rare one - no joy on that score but some good photo opportunities in any case with more common species. 
Greenshank, Porth Hellick pool
One of 15 Greenshank present
An obliging bird in front of the Stephen Sussex hide

A rare opportunity to get this close...
...sometimes even closer

Part of the flock which remained mostly sedentary during my several visits
Green Sandpiper on the small pool at Lower Moors.
I've seen Solitary Sandpiper on this same bit of mud, so good to get the species pair on the pool list
A lone Dunlin was also at Lower Moors...
..as was a single Common Snipe
Away from the water, this Northern Wheatear was on Peninnis Head
Northern Wheatear
A different Northern Wheatear on the photogenic heath around St Mary's airfield
Migrants were few and far between but this Willow Warbler was at  Porth Hellick


Meadow Pipit, Peninnis: one of not many passerine on St Mary's during the first half of last week
Friends have noted the decrease in wordage relative to pictures on this blog recently. Sorry about that, since returning from the above holiday I have been pretty focused on getting to grips with a new role at work, which has left me a bit bereft of time and energy (in a good way) to compose anything more than the sort of 'today I did this and saw that' kind of posts which I generally try to avoid. Fortunately, my new job is providing a rich vein of potential comic material. Unfortunately, were I to publish it, it might not be 'my new job' for much longer. So you'll just have to wait for the diaries...

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