Friday, November 20, 2015

Lands End and a Blackstart

The weather right now is rough, nearly constant rain and frequent passing storms.   That said there is still the odd stunner of a day.  One such was the 1st of November which proved to be t-shirt weather here in Cornwall.

We started off by visiting Land's End.  I don't think I've been there before, maybe early childhood but nothing rings any bells.   It was sold to a private owner and heavily developed some years ago, so it's a mini-theme park now similar to all the other ones.   It being November though the parking prices were reduced and it was mostly closed, which was nice!
As the early morning fog and mist cleared the view from Lands End was spectacular:

Around the hotel flocks of birds were feeding on the abundant insect life, including the often overlooked Jackdaw:
 The blue skies provided an excellent backdrop to photograph another overlooked species, the Eurasian Starling
Their plumage is magnificent at this time of year and they are still full of sing and chatter:

Another reason for choosing to visit Land's End was to add another species to our UK list, the Rosy Starling, which had been reported for some weeks as present.  Sure enough we first saw it right in the centre of the buildings, although later it moved to the grass atop the cliffs to feed:


From Lands End, it being such a beautiful day, we then headed to another beauty spot, Sennen Cove:


The light, the haze, the sunshine all combining to make it look stunning:


The food prices however were also stunning so we decided to move on again to one of our favourite spots, the café at Marazion, overlooking the RSPB reserve to one side and St Michael's Mount on the other:


A properly beautiful day and unexpected so we made the most of it:


Another interesting bird has been an unexpected garden visitor, a Black Redstart.  We did some digging and apparently there are a peak of 400 in the UK at this time of year, and one of them spent nearly a week in our garden enjoying the overturned mud, no doubt feasting on the exposed beasties:


It's a real delight to have a scarce species choose your garden to feed in.   We're also getting regular visits from a Grey Wagtail too, which is nice :)  Now a bit more sunshine and I could cut the grass...