randombirder

Another trip out there – hopefully not the last. The big stumbling block, as ever, is cost. It’s something you hear again and again from the small birding crowd that gathers at the tail end of the summer pelagic season. A £200 return on the Scillonian, £300-plus for a hop from Land’s End, and then upwards of £120 a night for accommodation – all before you’ve even got yourself to the far south-west. What’s long been a yearly pilgrimage is starting to feel more like a wallet-buster. And yet… the lure of the magic isles is hard to resist. Maybe cheaper options will open up, maybe not, but the draw of that archipelago hasn’t faded one bit. August visits have a different rhythm – much calmer than October’s full-on dawn-to-dusk madness that leaves you needing a holiday to recover. This one was centred on two pelagics, booked well in advance (the previous year’s gripping seabird sightings were still fresh in mind). The Scillonian crossing was quiet – a few short-beaked common dolphin  p...

What transpired was that the zitting cisticola had actually bred for the first time at this Suffolk location in Walberswick. The bird was relatively active, presumably feeding young at the nest site.