Sunday 7 November 2010

2 Megas + 1 day = Happy Man

So there I was bright and early on a Wednesday morning sleeping peacefully in bed when a text came through from Newton Stringer asking me if I wanted to go for the American Bittern and Green Heron in Cornwall. It would have been crazy to say no so I said yes and we made arrangements to go on Thursday night/Friday morning. Thursday rolled around and it was still there, twitch on! Myself, Stringer, and a new friend I made called Kevin went on out way toward Cornwall.

We arrived in Cornwall early on the Friday morning after an epic 7 or so hour journey. Our first port of call was the American Bitter and so we headed for that first. We had to walk across a farmers muddy field to get to the hides on a reserve called “Walmsley Sanctuary”, it is a members only reserve but the Cornwall Bird Club had very kindly allowed this to be ignored for this fantastically rare American vagrant. WE had to queue to get into the hide but news of its presence relaxed us as we thought we would see it. We obtained some good views from the Tower Hide as it wandered about going about its daily business. Eventually we were satisfied with the views that we had and we made way back to the car. Stringer suggested we look from the smaller hide that was not elevated to see if we could see the bird. On arrival the 3 men inside said that they hadn’t seen it yet. Then after about 5 minutes one gentleman said he had it. Thankfully we all got on it and with patience we enjoyed prolonged and excellent close range views of the bird. After it had disappeared into the thicker cover we left extremely pleased with the views we had of the bird.

Our second and last port of call was the Lost Gardens of Heligan, here out aim was to see the Green Heron. We were not disappointed and the bird showed extremely well and I had some superb views.

Two fantastic birds, great company, and special thanks to the lads for letting this tight hard up teenager off a little when it came to the fuel bill. Cheers lads!

(Green Heron - Newton Stringer ©)

(Green Heron - Newton Stringer ©)
(Spot the Bittern - Newton Stringer ©)

(American Bittern - Newton Stringer ©)

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