Waders on Marazion beach.

We spent a few days down at Marazion in West Cornwall, staying in the van in a campsite pretty much adjacent to Marazion marsh annd beach. A couple of early mornings trying to beat the dog walkers on the beach where quite a few waders were at the waters edge.Good numbers of Sanderlings running back and forwards and a few Turnstone and Dunlin and one Knot. I managed to get quite close to the Knot, a species i,ve really not got too many decent photos of before, and lying down on the sand to try and get some low level photos of the Sanderling and Turnstone. What a nice place to be first thing in the morning.

Waders on Davidstow airfield

September is usually a good time for seeing waders on Davidstow airfield in North Cornwall. This year was fairly productive with two Spotted Redshanks and a Little Stint feeding on the short grass and in the shallow pools,along with the more usual Dunlin, Ringed Plover, Ruff and Golden PLover. ( I did somehow miss the Pectoral Sandpiper after four tries though)

Great Shearwaters

Back on the last day of August I booked up a days trip out on a boat from Falmouth to look for seabirds anf maybe some Dolphins and hopefully a Whale. The weather seemed o.k on dry land but the wind had changed direction from the day before when apparently it was dead calm, so this day proved to be pretty choppy, consequently we had to hug the coast on the way out and did'nt see a lot. However out in deeper water, things looked up, seeing lots of Common Dolphin , a few Cory's Shearwater and good numbers of Great Shearwaters coming quite close to the boat. This was the species I most wanted to see and photograph, so a worthwhile trip in the end.

Chalkhill Blue

Joyce had planned a day out with her sister in Bath, so we stayed for a few nights at their home in Dursley in Gloucestershire which was quite handy for me as its not far from some good Butterfly sites, including a species I'd not seen before, the Chalkhill Blue. I headed for Rodborough commom,I had'nt realised how big the common was but surprisingly I found the area for the Blues fairly easily ( I usually get lost at new locations ! ). Thankfully the sun was mostly shining and the Butterflies were on the wing and feeding on flowers including Wild Marjoram, so I settled myself down beside that and spent some time with them, taking lots of photos.