Amazingly, another was found on the Lizard at Kynance cove the next day. This one was a younger bird and luckily had a habit of noosing on one of the rocks close offshore. Needless to say it was very popular, and on Friday many went down and got amazing views. It was seen at dusk roosting on the usual rock, promoting Lee Evans to tweet that anyone going on Saturday was guaranteed to see it.
Colin picked me up at 1am and we headed off on the long drive, arriving in Kynance car park just as it was getting light.
After a quick coffee and a bite we headed off west with the ever growing throng. It was rather chilly and windy but conditions soon improved. What I assumed would be a quick stroll to the cliff top actually turned out to be a bit harder than expected as we had to cross a deep coombe and the other side involved a climb up from the beach on some very slippery serpentine rocks to reach the steps cut further up. Not very enjoyable and it took it out of a lot of the elderly and infirm which comprised a substantial section of the crowd.
I reached the top overlooking Gull Rock and settled down to wait having met up with William Bishop. As soon as the light improved I could see lots of Gannets moving westward about a mile offshore. Smaller black and white birds mainly moving east were Manx Shearwaters-not auks as first thought. In the first couple of hours at least 500 were seen, probably a severe underestimate. Among them were a few dusky individuals two of which were certainly Balearic Shearwaters. I rarely sea watch in the far west, so seeing huge numbers rather than the handfuls in the channel and the North Sea was nice.
Several Arctic Skuas were seen, including one attacking a Peregrine out at sea, which was a bit different. Apparently Bonxies and Poms were also seen by some, but the only other decent seabird I got onto was a nice but very distant Sooty Shearwater dwarfing the two Manx it was with.
Landbirds were heading south all morning, with Grey and Pied Wagtails, Tree and Meadow Pipits, a couple of Wheatears and some Linnets.
Entertainment came from the very confiding Chough which are now well established here and seemed to be far tamer than the Welsh birds we used to see on Anglesey.
As for the Booby, well one guy claimed to see it flying low over the water between the two islands, and seconds later there was a claim about a mile east on the sea off a reef. This turned out to be a fishing Shag. Don't know what the guy saw, others were looking in that area and didn't see anything.
It usually left the roost just after 7am and would then fish in the bay for a bit and then move off, returning from time to time. Not today. We stuck it out until noon and then gave up and by then so had many others.
Approaching London I heard that it had been seen a couple of times in the afternoon, also single observer sightings, and apparently it may have been seen by a few about a mile east of us late afternoon. These reports have met with some scepticism.
Heres the rock where it wasn't seen flying over. Shot from the cliff near the car park.
2 comments:
Well now. I was there o Saturday and at 4pm it did show to about 20 of us. To the East over the rocks at Lizard point. In fact it showed well twice in bright sunlight. The lone individual was at the café when he saw it independently at the same time. In fact as I picked it up first, along with another chap, he shouted 'Booby' from the out of sight café. I can only wonder what people there thought. He then ran up to us to see if we had seen it. There were some who either did not pick up on the bird or didn't watch it long enough and these were circumspect but for those of us who saw it well we were and are 100% sure of what we saw. The vast majority were also happy with the ID. It was also seen by two independent and separate observers at 2pmish flying around the Lizard into the cove toward Lion rock. Next day we went to sit on Lizard point but there was little moving and we had to leave at noon. None of could get a signal to get the news out. Bit of a black spot.
Cheers
Colin.
Thanks for the comments. I was standing behind the guy who claimed it around 10am between the two islands. He'd seen loads earlier in the year and being well known, his sighting carried some weight but was generally dismissed at the time as many were also looking in that area and didn't see anything. The fact that there were no other sighting over the course of the morning prompted a lot of us to leave as we had expected the Booby to leave its roost on the island at some point and the fact that it wasn't seen on the rock lead us to conclude that it had already left before sunrise.
The various reports later that day on Twitter prompted the usual response on Bird Forum etc, hence my scepticism comment when I wrote the article. The details that eventually emerged(yours and others) suggest that the Booby was feeding a lot further out than previously, and a long way from where most of us had been standing and seems to have avoided the island.
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