Sunday 11 October 2009

Off To Scilly...

Tomorrow Bun and I are off to the Isles of Scilly for a week. I've never been before and from what I can see on Birdguides and have read elsewhere it looks like we've picked a fine year to be going! Apparently so far it's been the worst October for rare/scarce birds for twenty years!! Typical! Oh well, it can only get better I suppose. I must also point out that although it's my first trip to Scilly and I haven't been 'birding for donkey's years' like some, I will still be trying very hard to find birds myself, as will Bun I'm sure. We wont be sitting around in tearooms, waiting on the pager. I'm taking along THREE mobile phones, with fully charged batteries (coz we're camping) and if the batteries hold out I'll post a few progress reports on here via Twitter, well if there's any progress to report that is....

Never say never though, it only takes one bird! :-)

Today we had another Merveille Du Jour in the moth trap, a really nice fresh specimen too. Here it is in all it's finery:

Cor!
And here in glorious close up.....

Eww! Not so beautiful now eh?

At Coronation Corner this afternoon Gav found a stonking adult Yellow-legged Gull, a gorgeous brute with a stupendous bill! I haven't got any photos of said beast because I only had me bins on me ( I'd only popped out to show Gav the Merveille Du Jour), they were enough to enjoy good views though because we'd found a nice close vantage point. Gav got some nice shots of it though, which should appear on his blog later, most probably sometime in the wee small hours!

EDIT: Scratch that last sentence, they're already on Gav's blog as I write, there's a first time for everything!! ;-)

Early night for me now.

3 comments:

Wilma said...

What a beast that moth is when viewed up-close and head-on! Still very striking, though. Here's to good birding on your trip to Scilly.

Karen Woolley said...

Thanks Wilma :-)

Anonymous said...

Have a great time, Karen. All the rare`s are waiting for you to arrive.