New Years Bird List Booster 2025

Wednesday 8th January 2025

Seven brave souls joined Paul today on our 2nd NYBLB day tour in less than favourable conditions! In fact it rained all day! Our day of listing usually starts around HQ with a few commoner birds but at 0830hrs it was still hardly light and the drizzle forced us straight into the minibus. We first headed to Tehidy Country Park to beat the early dogwalkers and toddler brigades as well as considering a bit of overhead shelter from the rain. With hardly anyone around, the birds were less disturbed and we were soon adding some woodland and water birds to the list. This included the resident pair of Mandarin, a lone Gadwall, a stunning Bullfinch and Nuthatch at the feeders. Walking back to the van we were lucky to pick up a Mistle Thrush with Redwings on the adjacent golf course. A brief stop at Hell’s Mouth afforded us great views of Fulmar and Peregrine Falcons before we stopped off at St Gothians Sands. A quick look over the main pond here for wildfowl added Coot, Teal, Wigeon and Shoveler to the list.

Next stop was the Hayle Estuary and after a toilet stop at Copperhouse, adding a few waders at the creek itself, we headed for a bit of respite in the hide at Ryan’s Field. On entering the hide the overwintering Spoonbill showed brilliantly directly in front of us! A single Black-tailed Godwit added to the wader list here and the Goosander were thankfully obliging on the main estuary. From here we headed for one of two afternoon visits to Marazion. The weather really closed in at this point and we could hardly see a thing on the sea apart from a distant raft of Common Scoter. The eastern end of the reserve held a few Meadow and Rock Pipits, Greenfinch, Linnet, Stonechat and a Chiffchaff, all feeding on the seaweed washed up on the beach.

Battery Rocks is always a must on our winter tours where we are almost always guaranteed Purple Sandpiper. On arrival though it didnt look great with high tide waves crashing against the usual roosting site. However, a further lean over the sea wall found just three birds huddled together right up against the wall! John also found us a female Black Redstart inside Jubilee Pool! The sea state wasn’t great for Divers either but fortunately a few Great Northern were sheltering in the relative calm of Newlyn Harbour, so they went on the list. Our next destination was a muddy affair, trudging through wet footpaths at Boscathno Reservoir near Heamoor, Penzance. This was in search of a Little Bunting that had been seen in recent days in that area. Our luck was finally in and as we approached a weedy field, four birds flew up into the surrounding hedge. One LITTLE BUNTING and three Reed Buntings!

After leaving the buntings we had a quick stop in at Drift reservoir for the expected Great Crested Grebe before ending the day back at Marazion. This time the visibility was better than earlier and we managed to find a female Eider and Mediterranean Gull on the rocks. With light fading fast we decided to call time and were pleasantly surprised to find, despite the weather, that we had seen 92 types of bird!!

As you can imagine, it wasnt camera weather, so no photos today. An amazing effort by the group to get 92 species in those conditions! Thanks to all our guests, we had a great day.

BIRD LIST

Red-throated Diver, Great Northern Diver, Little Grebe, Great Crested Grebe, Fulmar, Gannet, Cormorant, Shag, Little Egret, Grey Heron, Spoonbill, Mute Swan, Canada Goose, Shelduck, Mandarin Duck, Wigeon, Gadwall, Teal, Mallard, Shoveler, Tufted Duck, Eider, Common Scoter, Goosander, Buzzard, Peregrine, Pheasant, Water Rail, Moorhen, Coot, Oystercatcher, Ringed Plover, Grey Plover, Lapwing, Sanderling, Purple Sandpiper, Dunlin, Snipe, Black-tailed Godwit, Bar-tailed Godwit, Curlew, Redshank, Greenshank, Turnstone, Mediterranean Gull, Black-headed Gull, Common Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Herring Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Kittiwake, Guillemot, Feral Pigeon, Stock Dove, Woodpigeon, Collared Dove, Great-spotted Woodpecker, Meadow Pipit, Rock Pipit, Pied Wagtail, Wren, Dunnock, Robin, Black Redstart, Stonechat, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Redwing, Mistle Thrush, Cetti’s Warbler, Chiffchaff, Coal Tit, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Nuthatch, Jay, Magpie, Jackdaw, Rook, Carrion Crow, Raven, Starling, House Sparrow, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Linnet, Bullfinch, LITTLE BUNTING, Reed Bunting.