Alpine Accentor.

4th March. Word of an Alpine Accentor (Prunella collaris) at Aire point ,Gwenver in West Cornwall was very unexpected and would be a lifer for me, so had to go and take a look. A walk from Nanquidno in warm early spring sunshine I saw a small group of birders on the coastpath some way ahead and hoped they were watching the bird, thankfully they were on the Accentor albeit a bit distant but still nice views in someones scope, a really cracking little bird, the pictures in the fieldguides not doing it any justice at all. It took flight and went around the rocky headland,I had a celebratory coffee and decided to follow the others to see if it was still showing. A good job I did as it was much closer allowing for some nice photos. After some good views I decided to start the walk back to the car, and could'nt believe it when it landed on a rock practically right next to me giving me the chance for some much closer photos ( I still had the 1.4 converter on so it pretty much filled the frame). Brilliant. This was only the third record for Cornwall and only the thirty second for Britain, they are a bird of alpine regions of Europe, I never expected to see one on the Cornish coast.

Red Crested Pochards

Back in early March,Joyce found an offer to visit a National Trust property for free, she made the mistake of asking me where I fancied going , so I suggested Saltram House near Plymouth where I just happened to know that a pair of Red Crested Pochards had been visiting the small pond there in recent weeks. But it is a nice place to visit anyway so thats where we went ( I did tell her about the ducks the day before). A lovely sunny day and the Male and female Pochards were showing very well at close range , along with the few resident Mandarins which were getting very frisky. I also had the added bonus of some coloured reflrctions on the water ( which were just some recently treated fenceposts).