Abbey Meadows

Abbey Meadows

Monday 7 September 2009

Wild west country

St Michaels mount...Marazion
Lands end from Sennen


Going nowhere!


Cornish heath...Kenyance cove, Lizard



Colourful Heathers and Western Gorse at Lands end




Thyme Broomrape...kenyance cove, Lizard





Rock sea spurrey...Penzaance







Dead flower heads of Navelwort







Blue snail on lands end.


Spent my first ever week in Cornwall; the 1000 mile return journey has aways put me off but I will certainly come back some time in the future. It was a blustery week. A couple of downers, the first being the Scillonian 111 was not taking day trippers to the isles of Scilly as force 8 winds meant it would be saturday (the day of return) when it was next sailing and a planned fishing boat trip had to be cancelled so we had to be content with some pier fishing. However, this part of Cornwall is something of a gem with regards to the huge variety of wildlife it has to offer. I managed to find over 30 species of new flowers some of which are West Cornwall specialities and at least a dozen more I'm still trying to identify. Visited some great sites; Lands end has a great dry heath headland and the Lizard is something else.
The wildlife highlights were Cornish heath, Lanceolate spleenwort, Greek sea spurrey, Monarch butterfly on Lands end, Sun fish just 100 metres off the rocks at St Ives, Citrine wagtail, Little Egret (Marazion) and two new birds with Balearic shearwater (St Ives) and Bairds sandpiper (Marazion). On Friday a trip to St Ives coincided with a strong North westerly and an hours sea watch produced over a thousand Manx shearwater with at least 20 Balearics and a Cory's, a Grey phalarope sitting on the water, 2 Dolphins and the Sun fish (1 of 3).

2 comments:

Kingsdowner said...

Stunning sightings indeed, who needs to go to the Scillies with that lot about.
Kynance Cove is just gorgeous, and fun for swimming around the rocks at high tide.
I didn't see quite so many new species when I was up in Northumberland!

Stewart said...

Great stuff Nigel, its a great place for us northerners...