Isles of Scilly - 7th October 2023

With the weather more typical of the Mediterranean than the UK, birding today was pretty pedestrian, pootling around picking up some of the more reliable birds scattered around St. Mary's. After yesterday's vigil for the bobolink, there was no intention to stand around anywhere. With that in mind, I headed to the bobolink site and stood around for a while.... but only for an hour waiting for something to happen. Inevitably nothing did happen apart from the much more reliable common rosefinch and a spotted flycatcher picked out among the sycamores.

The plan was to visit St. Agnes today, but news of two species absent from my Scilly list were available at Porth Hellick. Entering the Stephen Sussex hide, two grey heron with impeccable timing flushed everything in site but with enough time to see a rapidly disappearing ruff that never did return. Two garganey eventually swam back into view but were typically wary.

Cream tea urges took me up to Longstones for a pleasant half hour before walking down to Carreg Dhu gardens where this stunning firecrest took a while to pin down but with a bit of inspiration managed to find a spot where this golden gem was feeding.

Next was a walk through Holy Vale and up to Maypole where the two wryneck were feeding out in the open providing great scope views.

From there, the walk down to Porth Hellick produced a great egret that passed by after hearing a few frantic calls on the radio. Still not a common bird around these parts.

Feeling a bit ropey, the day was unfortunately curtailed early but I was keen to get my energy back for the following day.

Steps: 26,237 (20.7 km)