After leaving Shetland yesterday afternoon with news that the Booted Eagle was still about,myself and Dan Pointon headed south and picked Owen Parsons up from Cheshire on are way down.We drove through the night and arrived on site just before 8.00am and managed to find a good vantage point for the bird if was still around.
We waited all day but there was no sign of the bird.Plenty of Buzzards were seen along with a Red Kite,Marsh Harrier and a Merlin.There were also good numbers of large Shearwaters passing with Cory's and Manx being seen at Pendeen before dusk.
This was the third record from Cornwall this year but none of them have hung around.The Booted Eagle has a controversial history in Britain and Ireland, with a pale-morph immature that toured Britain and Ireland in 1999-2000 currently placed into Category D – a holding category for species where there is a reasonable doubt that birds have occurred in Britain in a natural state – owing to anomalies such as the arrival date, duration of stay and state of plumage, as well as the largely unfounded accusation that the species isn't prone to crossing large bodies of water.
We decided to stay over in Penzance overnight and hang around tomorrow just in case the bird made another appearance but by lunch time we gave up and headed to the Lizard where we got good views of an juvenile Rose Coloured Starling.
Back down the road at Helston two Firecrests were seen and a Mediterranean gull was on the boating lake.
With still no news on the Booted Eagle we started the long journey back north and called in at Dawlish Warren where we connected with a male,female and two juvenile Cirl Buntings.I hadn't seen one of these for years and we ended up getting great views of them feeding on the golf course.
Dan and Owen photographing the Cirl's
As dusk was upon us again we headed home,No Booted but THEY'LL BE ANOTHER!😎
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