I had the afternoon off so took the opportunity for a brief outing as I haven't been out for a while (busy studying Bio books for much of the week). Anyway, my first stop was an area which I had expected to be scrubland in the west/central area of Falmouth. However, on arrival I was surprised, to say the least, that it was covered nearly entirely by a modern housing estate, even my most recent OS map and google maps was oblivious to the change! Only a fraction of the original habitat remained but was heavily fenced off. All the same it appeared like an ideal spot for migrants (almost reminded me of the Ivinghoe Hills) but alas it seems I still need to go on the search for a good local patch. I decided to retry Swanpool Beach and Pennance Point. A group of gulls was assemble on the water only metres from the shoreline, 2 Mediterranean Gulls being the highlight among them (one visible almost immediately as it was paddling around in the water almost at my feet, behaving like a domestic duck!) Not much else to report in truth. I tried the Golf Course again expecting fewer golfers = more birds but it seems the golf course is never void of golfers so only managed to see 3 Meadow Pipits fly over. The only other sign of a migrant being a Chiffchaff in the coppice at Pennance Point. Not much to report from the headland either as I had decided to leave my scope at home but both ad. win. Med Gulls decided to fly west past the headland, presumably the two individuals I had seen earlier in the bay. Interestingly however, despite having been in the company of the BHGulls earlier the Meds were only accompanied by a few Herring Gulls, my guess would be the BH Gulls roost in a different area to the Herring and Med Gulls, an interesting hypothesis as one would almost certainly have expected the opposite.
PS. Still getting to grips with some of the commoner species that one doesn't often see in Herts eg. Gannets, absolute stunners and present almost permanently offshore (taken for granted in my opinion).
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