Flashback #6; First Half of September 2022

Welcome to another attempt to catch up on last years birding highlights in a (probably futile) attempt at logging a whole years birding.

Falmouth Bay Pelagic, 14 August 2023

Pelagic Magic! Falmouth 10th September 2022

We live in Oxfordshire, just about as far from the sea as you can be in the UK. We face over a two hour drive in order to get to the nearest seaside towns and even longer journeys to get to coastal birding hotspots. The closest we get to doing some actual seawatching is by staring out into the middle of Farmoor reservoir on a wet and rough day. Actual 'proper' seawatching from coastal headlands is extremely alien to us, it's not an activity that we are comfortable with and something we have done on very few occasions. Watching birds flying past a mile out to sea is difficult, views are usually poor, and lots of practise at identifying distant birds is required before the necessary experience is gained. Of course a lot of seabirds breed on cliffs and islands and can be seen easily when in residence but the true maritime species, those that don't breed in accessible places in the UK, will mostly only ever be seen by scoping from land in periods of bad weather when strong winds blow the birds close enough to shore. 

However there is another option and for some time now I had been harbouring a desire to, 'go on a pelagic', that is to board a boat that sails out into the open sea where those sea-going birds, that at the least attainable from land, spend their lives. My own life list of birds seen has a gaping great hole in it because I'd hardly ever seen any Shearwaters, birds that breed on remote and hard to get to islands, and when not breeding, spend their entire lives out at sea. I only have two species of Shearwater on my list, Manx Shearwater which are very common around the UK and can be seen readily around the coasts at certain times of the year, I've even seen two at Farmoor reservoir before, strays dumped there by autumn storms, and Sooty Shearwater, my only record of which came last year from the Ullapool to Stornaway ferry and I had to rely on a much better birder than myself for identifying the distant blob sailing past about a mile away for that. I wanted to see Shearwaters up close and personal and the only way to do that would be from a boat.

The pelagics operated by 'Scilly Pelagics' in the waters surrounding the Isles of Scilly are famous amongst birders. Those boats are manned by very experienced and brilliant sea-birders and sail far out into the southern approaches of the English Channel and consistently achieve sightings of many seabirds of both common and very rare species. I've been wanting to go on a few of those boats for sometime but unfortunately the best time to see the birds is in August which is also the most popular time to take a holiday in Britain, and to visit Scilly becomes extremely expensive. So when I learned of similar pelagic trips operating out of Falmouth I jumped at the chance to get on one. However, mainland Cornwall is also a very pricy place to stay in during August so we waited until the last sailing in September. Of course we could have feasibly done the whole gig in a day but what a jaunt that would be, ten hours of driving plus seven on a boat would be a killer, and besides we love Cornwall so a week away would be far better. Holiday cottages are reduced in price by a fair bet once the school holidays end and by booking as late as the Tuesday before the weekend meant that I could negotiate a much fairer rate than those previously offered. 

We drove down to the cottage, only a few miles from Lands End at the 'business end' of Cornwall in birding terms, on Friday the day before the pelagic. On the way down we twitched a juvenile Black Tern at Chard Reservoir and paid homage to the Labrador Bay Cirl Buntings, both much needed year ticks. Neither of those birds performed particularly well for us so we had to be satisfied with distant views but both were duly added to the list. The photos below were taken last year.

juvenile Black Tern, Farmoor 23/08/2021

male Cirl Bunting, Labrador Bay 01/04/2021

Year List additions;

267) Black Tern, 268) Cirl Bunting