With the wind blowing south easterly I thought it good for a Hoopoe this morning. I started at Maker, just a couple of Chiffs and a Blackcap. Then onto Rame Head, picking up a Wheatear and a few more Chiffchaff, a Kestrel and several Cormorant and Shag on the rocks. Finally on to Penlee where there were a couple more Chiffs near the car park. The place where I’ve always thought would be good for a Hoopoe is the north […]

Photo by Sue Sayer, Cornwall Seal Group http://www.cornwallsealgroup.co.uk/ A Great black-backed Gull ringed as a chick on Guernsey  in June 2010 has been sighted on Looe Island and may possibly breed here this season. If so it may well be the first recorded instance of breeding emigration of a Great Black back from Guernsey to England. The bird was sighted at Downderry in September 2010 and was seen several times at Looe in 2012 and 2013. Identified by the inscribed […]

Helene Jessop, Assistant Conservation Officer for the RSPB at Exeter has provided me with an update on the seabird wreck in the eastern Atlantic following the winter gales. A conservative estimate puts the figure at a staggaring  30,000 birds.  In Cornwall the following were reported c1,400 birds of 15 different species, with more than 1,300 auks (mostly guillemots, with smaller numbers of razorbills and more than 50 reported puffins) and also shag, kittiwake, black-headed gull, common gull, herring gull, lesser-black […]

Heronries Survey At the recent joint CBWPS/BTO/UoE conference (where I gave a presentation on GBBs) the CBWPS launched the 2014 Cornwall Heronries Survey which aims to visit all of the recorded heronries in the county to confirm their current status. Some are undoubtably historical and will be unoccupied, but a full audit of all of all of these sites is long overdue. The Tamar Valley is an important county site for Herons and there may be new heronries tucked away […]

Mark Grantham has put the following post on his west Cornwall Ringing Group blog. Tony Blunden took the photos. ”The last couple of weeks have seen large numbers of Great Black-backed Gulls (and the odd Iceland and Glaucous Gull, and even a smart Kumlien’s Gull!) gathering on the reef at Lizard Point. There seems to be an endless stream of colour-ringed birds in amongst them as well, with birds from as diverse places as Norway, Wales, Channel Islands and France! […]