CITRINE & PIED WAGTAIL

Birding can be a funny old Lark, one day you can go out with low expectations and have a real Purple Patch, another day you can go when plenty of good things are reported and see very little. which is just what happened on Saturday.

I got a text from Ashley mid Sat afternoon to say that in the Nanquidno area near Lands End there was a Citrine Wagtail, 4 Ortolan Buntings, a Wryneck and a possible Icterine Warbler.

So I set off and had a real slow drive down through very heavy traffic (I think every tractor in West Cornwall was on the roads) and arrived at 1510 hrs. Met up with another local birder Steve from Newquay and we set off for the area between Gurland & Tregiffian farms. On arriving at the first point met another chap who was looking over the ploughed field for the Ortolan's, he said they had been flushed by a Sparrowhawk twenty minutes earlier. So we went the short distance to the small pool where the Citrine Wagtail was seen only to be told it had been flushed earlier by an Aircraft taking off from the nearby St Just Airfield.

So the next hour was spent going between the two sites, plenty of Yellow - Pied and white Wagtails, and Steve found a Spotted Flycatcher with his scope. So Spot Fly and Yellow Wag were two year ticks, finally the Citrine Wag turned up at the pool for a short stay. I just managed to get a couple of record shots, shortly after this decided to call it a day and headed home, I suppose 1 out of four and three year ticks (Yes Steve did not realize but I had a Citrine at Marazion in 2004 so its just a tick) was not so bad.

Below are a couple of record shots of the Citrine and a White Wagtail.

CITRINE WAGTAIL.

CITRINE WAGTAIL.

WHITE WAGTAIL.

WHITE WAGTAIL.

After this Sunday turned out to be very wet and now Monday morning its very heavy rain and the forecast is for not much improvement all week, so hope some of these birds stick around.