Black Beauty

My brother and I headed off down to Cornwall on the Saturday (the 7th) with a view to taking a trip over to the Isles of Scilly. Our aim was to see whether we could find any seabirds or cetaceans from the trip over to the islands on the Scillonian. As the boat was not booked until the 9th we had a day to explore Cornwall and see what we could turn up.

Black Darter and Beautiful Demoiselle.

Having made excellent time on our trip from Northamptonshire we made our first stop at Breney Common on Bodmin Moor. While the reserve took more than a little finding I in particular was glad that we made the effort. Anyone that has read this blog will know that I have my own particular dragonfly bogey in the shape of Black Darter. Trips to Norfolk over the past couple of years had failed to produce the goods and I was beginning to think that they were avoiding me but today my persistence paid off. It was my brother that found the single male which ended my run of failures and I was glad that it hung around long enough for me to record this historic event. Other species seen on site were two Beautiful Demoiselles, Common Emeralds, Common Blue Damsels, Ruddy and Common Darters.

Common Darters and Grey Seal.

From here we went along to the Lizard where the local Choughs were our original goal though recent sightings of a Brown Booby in the area added a little dash of excitement to the mix. I'm not going to try and build up any dramatic tension - we failed to see either species though both were seen a little further up the coast at Kynance Cove. Not all was lost however as a few bits and bobs provided a bit of compensation. Several Grey Seals were noted swimming offshore while Rock Pipits showed very well. Some passing seabirds were seen and the pick of these was a Great Skua which was chasing a Kittiwake. Also observed were Manx Shearwaters, Gannets and Fulmar.

Rock Pipit and view of the Lizard.

As time was beginning to get on a bit by this stage we had to make our way along the coast to Penzance. A wander along the sea front produced a few sightings of gulls and several Turnstones but not too much else.

Turnstone.