After leaving Shetland yesterday afternoon with news that the Booted Eagle was still in the area, Dan Pointon and I headed south and picked up Owen Parsons from Cheshire on our way down. We drove through the night and arrived at the site just before 8:00 AM, managing to find a good vantage point to observe the bird if it was still around.
We waited all day, but there was no sign of the bird. We did see plenty of buzzards, along with a red kite, a marsh harrier, and a merlin. There were also good numbers of large shearwaters passing by, with Cory's and Manx shearwaters observed at Pendeen before dusk.
This was the third sighting in Cornwall this year, but none of the birds have stayed for long. The booted eagle has a controversial history in Britain and Ireland. A pale-morph immature bird that toured both regions from 1999 to 2000 is currently placed in Category D—a classification for species where there is reasonable doubt that they have occurred in Britain naturally. This is due to anomalies like the arrival date, duration of stay, and plumage condition, as well as the largely unfounded claim that the species is not prone to crossing large bodies of water.
We decided to stay in Penzance overnight and wait to see if the bird would return the next day. However, by lunchtime, we gave up and headed to the Lizard, where we were fortunate to get good views of a juvenile rose-colored starling.
Back down the road at Helston, two Firecrests were seen, and a Mediterranean gull was on the boating lake..
With no news yet on the Booted Eagle, we began our long journey back north and stopped at Dawlish Warren. There, we spotted a male, a female, and two juvenile Cirl Buntings. I hadn’t seen one of these birds in years, and we ended up getting great views of them as they fed on the golf course..
Dan and Owen photographing the Cirl's
As dusk fell upon us again, we headed home. No boots, but there will be another!