I was up in Dumfries and Galloway today working when dan pointon rang me and said that the brown booby had been seen again in St Ives,cornwall,apparently photos of the brown booby had been taken and put on social media feeding just off the beach,just a couple of hundred yards from where it was the previous day.
I eventually finished what I was doing and I headed south back to lymm services in warrington,dan was an hour and half behind me coming even further,Carnoustie in Angus!I soon arrived at the services and grabbed us both a mcdonald's and a coffee and we were soon on are way south.
WITH FOOD IN ARE BELLIES IT WAS TWITCH ON!
I'll cut the story short,a week last sunday a photo appeared,taken in Kent of what appeared to be a brown booby flying along the kent coastline some 6 days previous.This seemed unlikely,as there has never been one in this country before and brown booby is a tropical species.Having said that,the photo looked quite good,despite being a bit blurry,but a gannet could not be ruled out.Then intriguingly last monday a possible brown booby was reported fishing off a beach in cornwall,seen by a good birder but without binoculars as he was at the beach for the day with his family.Furthermore,there were mysterious unconfirmed reports of two further sightings at the same beach earlier in the day.This still wasn't enough to have us heading all the way down to cornwall on a blind goose chase.There was no sign of the bird for the rest of the day
I USUAL END UP CO PILOT BUT ALWAYS END UP LIKE THIS
We arrived on site around 18.30pm,but the bird hadn't been seen all afternoon.We waited until dusk but there was still no sign of the bird.WE'LL BE BACK!
EVENING SUNSET IN ST IVES
We eventually found our youth hostel near Helston and headed out for a curry with John pegden,little did we no it would be the worst curry we had ever had!
We got up around 5.00am in the morning and headed back to St Ives and stood at the coastguard station waiting for the sun to rise.
ME AT THE COASTGUARD STATION
Good numbers of Manx Shearwater were streaming past the coastguards along with a single Sooty Shearwater.Just after 8.00am Dan got on the booby fishing off Godrevy sands.I got on the bird but it was distant I watched the booby for maybe 5 minutes from the coastguards giving a good opportunity to study plumage,flight and fishing behaviour.A very nice comparison at one point flying alongside a juvenile Gannet.After seeing the bird me and Dan ran back down to the car and drove over to where we had seen the booby but as we were driving we heard the bird had headed east due to the deterioration in the weather.
We spent the next 13 hours looking for the bird,NO SIGN!
GODREVY SANDS
I couldn't stay another night due to work the next morning so I headed back with Chris Batty and left dan to try again in the morning,I was happy I had seen the bird but would have liked closer views of this first for Britain.
Anyway the next morning the bird showed again for a good hour in the same place we had seen it yesterday.BUGGER!
After a blank day on the friday,the bird went on to show very well again in St Ives Bay from mid-morning on saturday 31st, even spending almost an hour on rocks just offshore at St Ives itself around midday, where it was well photographed.
GRIPPING PHOTOS BY (C)SAM VILES
It then flew past Pendeen not long after that and,to the doom and gloom of the Sunday twitchers' brigade and wasn't seen again that day or early on Monday morning.
At that point it seemed like the trail had gone cold once more,but then,at 10.40 am on monday,a brown booby was located on rocks at Kynance cove,on the lizard peninsula.It soon became apparent that they were differences in the plumage and,sensationally,it was confirmed as yet another new bird–this time a younger individual with extremely tatty flight feathers.
The bird seemed to like a certain rock where it sat for the next two days so on the Wednesday I headed back down to Cornwall and got great views of the bird flying past the headland.If anyone wanted to see a brown booby in britain,this was the golden opportunity as it was so easy to see.
WAITING FOR THE BROWN BOOBY WITH THE MASSES
KYNANCE COVE
TWO WEDNESDAY BOOBYS ON THE LIST!
