Cornwall for a day

Work took me to Cornwall Thursday afternoon. A nice hotel on the coast with good food, drink and company as a reward "for doing well". So a drive down on Thursday for dinner and drinks was followed by more drinks on the Friday.....a little messy!

But Saturday came and the time was my own so I shook of the hangover and made the short drive down to Porthgwarra a place I'd wanted to visit for a while now. Timing wasn't great with clear skies and very little wind but it made for a nice walk along the cliff tops where the local deers watched as I plotted up and scoped the calm seas for a while. Hundreds of Gannets and thousands of Manx Shearwater along with Fulmars, Shags and gulls. Throw in a couple of Dolphin sightings along with the odd Seal and that was the sum of it really. A great place that I'd love to visit again when the wind was bringing a few rarer Shearwaters in. (Chough are supposed to be doing well here having spread from the Lizard point birds but I didn't see or hear any during my stay.)

View from Gwennap Head

I left and whilst driving back passed a sign for Hayle nature reserve so diverted to make the short trip aware that a Ring-billed Gull had been seen here on Friday. I parked up and walked out to the estuary where I quickly found the target sitting out on the river bank with a group of mixed Herring and Black-headed Gulls. A nice year tick that's finally moved the list again after a couple of weeks with no action.

Ring-billed Gull on the Hayle estuary

I just had the 340 mile drive home to manage now but broke it up with a stop at Stokenchurch where I enjoyed a) a break from the drive and b) over thirty Red Kites all flying over the common as the locals put out their BBQ scraps for them.

Red Kite Stokenchurch Common

Red Kite at Stokenchurch 

Red Kite at Stokenchurch

Red Kite Stokenchurch 

A long trip but it's wet the appetite for a longer visit with my good lady so she can see the sights and I can spend a little more time sitting looking at the sea.