May 2022

30th. Porthleven - Penrose Estate - Loe Bar - Gunwalloe and back. The sea holly at Loe Bar was coming into flower, the sea sandwort appeared to have largely gone over. I found a spike of purple viper's bugloss. 

A pale buzzard flew over Gunwalloe. Someone thought they saw a long-legged buzzard on the Lizard the same day, though this was never confirmed.  

 Lots of six-spot burnets were flying,  and one cream-spot tiger. 

 We saw 4 choughs.

 The invasive purple dewplant  near Porthleven. 

29th. A walk from Porthleven to near Rinsey Head.

 27th. We walked from Church Cove, Gunwalloe to the Halzephron Inn for lunch and back. The thrift and kidney vetch are starting to go over but are still spectacular.  Two sedge warblers on the walk. 

 We saw a tame raven. 

26th. The ROLLER in the set-aside field at the Clowance Estate, Praze-an-Beeble.

21st. Two spotted flycatchers in Bourton Combe. 

19th. I walked from Trevescan to Nanjizel, on to Land's End and back to Trevescan. There were some great arable weeds at the start of the walk - corn marigolds, cornflowers, wild turnip, field pansy, and what looked like sand pansy. Presumably these have been sown intentionally, especially as the last species is extinct in Cornwall?

Sea beet is in flower.

Corvids on the walk - chough and jackdaw.

Longships lighthouse.

In the evening a bottlenose dolphin was my third cetacean species of the week in St Ives bay (I missed the minke whale again).

18th. A female red-breasted merganser was an unexpected visitor and showed well off Bamaluz point.

In the evening a harbour porpoise came into the Bay.

17th. I caught up with the long-staying third-year male Montagu's harrier on Bosporthennis Moor, the second I've seen in the UK following a male at Crook's Peak in the Mendips many years ago. I returned on 19th, but it flew off high soon after 09.00h after showing well, and presumably has now moved on. I also walked up to Mulfra Quoit on 19th.

The Risso's dolphins were still in the Bay, and I saw one from the bedroom window!

16th. There's a pod of Risso's dolphins in St Ives Bay - the first I've seen here. There are at least 4, including a young one. One individual is old and very white. Another is heavily scarred and probably a male. The scars arise from fights, or maybe interactions with squid that they eat. The skin doesn’t repigment, and the scars may be signals to other males to reduce conflict.

One individual was breaching and splashing offshore.

Four painted ladies, a wheatear and 4 swifts on the Island too.

15th-20th. I was in Cornwall, and the long days give some time to get out and about. A good place to recuperate, and I now have energy levels back to normal.

14th. First swifts of the year - 4 over the garden in Bishopston. Back to the Forest of Dean, this time around Crabtree Hill. A nice singing male redstart, lots of willow warblers, and 2 fallow deer. There was at least one distant singing tree pipit, and the Merlin app detected a wood warbler but we didn't register it.

8th. An evening walk at Nagshead RSPB, Forest of Dean. A pair of redstarts (female below), singing pied flycatcher, tree creeper and calling siskins.

7th. Green-winged orchids looking good at Ashton Court, including some light pink and white varieties.