A lot of the plants have got rather battered, though there was no long term damage. However the plastic greenhouse that I have had on the patio for a couple of years was found on Monday to be leaning at a bad angle, and a couple of the shelves had dropped down, though thankfully nothing was damaged. I temporarily tied it all together, got it straightened but it was clear it wouldn't last much longer-the plastic cover was in pretty poor condition with a broken zip and large holes where the plastic had suffered from the sunlight. I was thinking about getting a new cover, but had a look on line for lean too greenhouses. Even the smallest aluminium ones seemed to be too large, but `I found a wooden self assembly model that looked ok, and arranged delivery for Wednesday.
Big problem turned up on Tuesday, in the form of a Grey Catbird in Cornwall. The first UK record (apart from one each on the Channel Islands and Eire) was on Anglesey in 2001. Weather conditions as I remember weer appalling and not everyone saw it. It was according to some (but vociferously denied by others) seen by a few next day, and became rather controversial as a result. I never went-the weather put me off, but I remember seeing Lee Evans a couple of days later at Prawle while twitching a Bobolink and had a chat about it.
Anyway I wasn't expecting it to stay. A few friends went down on the Wednesday while I started to assemble my new Greenhouse. This took much longer than expected and its was clear that I would still be working on it the next day so I called Colin. Unfortunately he was going to be busy on Friday so it looked like it would be a Saturday trip-and it was doubtful if the Catbird would still be around. However Colin called on Thursday and said he had rearranged work, so Friday was possible. It was tense as there had been no sighting since lunchtime bit when it was seen to go into roost that evening we made arrangements.
Seven hours later, at 2am we were on the road, and made good time, arriving at the parking field at Treeve Moor half a mile from Lands End at 745 am. There was a small crowd in the field, but no sign of the Catbird, though I heard it call a couple of times. The other side of the house had a larger crowd and not long after we set up seemed to be interested in something so most of us went round to join them. A quick peek through someone's scope revealed a dim Catbird in the hedge (ironically not far from where we were originally) and over the next hour it put in several appearances as the light improved. My best views were in a bramble by the pond, not more than 30 yards away. Good job I had the 500mm lens with a 2x converter as I got pretty good close ups, thought he light levels weren't ideal.
There were a lot of thrushes around. Mainly Blackbirds, with several Song Thrushes and a couple of Redwings over. Ring Ouzels were being reported all around the coast though and one was later seen here. Also one or two Richards Pipits seemed to be lingering in the area, but the only other good birds I saw were two Chough over the hill east of us. Though calling loudly only a couple of us noticed them. These were the first i'd seen in England-all previous birds had bee on Anglesey and it has been a long time since were were last there.
Had a chat with Mike Illet in the car park while trying to decide where to go next. Colin and I decided on Ballowal Barrows near Cape Cornwall where three Vagrant emperors and several red Veined Daters had been seen previously. While the landscape was very nice-superb coastlines, old tin mine chimneys and the barrows we couldn't find any dragonflies in the cool breezy conditions-a few were seen later in the day some way away from where we were.
Mike had gone to Drift reservoir and reported the three Ring Necked Ducks so we went there as well. Unfortunately a car load was packing up saying they were no longer there so they started to drive off. Meanwhile the couple scoping the water called me over to question the three ducks he was looking at-Ring Necks! Despite waving them back the car load ignored us and drove off. The duck were a long way off, but clearly female/juvenile birds. A scan of the gulls and ducks failed to find anything else of interest.
We were now approaching noon and made the decision to return home. It would have been good to search one of the valleys or head to Porthgwarra-a lot of very hard work in every case with maybe nothing to show, and had we been down for a couple of days we would have tried Cot or Nanqidno. On the way back Colin indulged me and we stopped off at Hardy Exotics Nursery outside Penzance. Bit like a kid in a sweetshop unfortunately. However I was very restrained and kept my purchases to a couple of foliage Begonias (including a replacement for one I had lost in spring) and ignored a lot of very tempting plants.
The journey home was pretty good. There were the usual slow sections on the M4, needing diversions and also around the St Albans stretch of the M25, but the slowest bit by far was the last three miles as Stevenage was well and truly stuffed and my bit seemed to bear the brunt of the traffic problems.
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