Tour Report England - Isles of Scilly in Spring 19 - 26 May 2018 Blue-tailed damselfly Guillemot Whistling jacks Stonechat Compiled by: Will Wagstaff 01305 267 994 [email protected] www.thetravellingnaturalist.com Tour Leader: Will Wagstaff with 11 participants Day 1: Arrive St Mary’s Saturday 19 May 2018 Everyone arrived on St Mary’s during the day so we had our first get together in the late afternoon, at the Bell Rock Hotel, our base for the next week. That evening everyone attended my slideshow about the islands wildlife at the nearby church hall. Weather: Sunny, 18 degrees Day 2: Seabird Special boat trip & St Mary’s Sunday 20 May 2018 The walk from the hotel to the quay this morning gave me a chance to show the clients the layout of the town before we boarded the boat that was to take us on a cruise around the islands this morning. The two rather elusive great northern divers that were near the uninhabited island of Samson did not want to show themselves unlike the flock of dunlin we found as we reached the southern shores of Tresco. With them were a couple of sanderling and at least one ringed plover. Several whimbrel were feeding higher up the beach. We encountered the occasional shelduck as we cruised around the smaller rocks and a lone curlew was on the island of Tean. That was easier to see than the female peregrine perched high on St Helen’s. A few fulmars were on the sheltered side of Round Island as were the fulmars on a nearby impressive rock called Men-a- Vaur. However, it was the auks we had come to see. There were a great many guillemots and razorbills, either on the water, sitting on the rock or flying around. We could also see quite a few puffins, again some on the rock and others in flight. Our route then took us around the north of Tresco where three manx shearwaters were added to the list. Having passed Cromwell’s and King Charles Castles on the coast of Tresco, we dropped off some other folk before heading back to St Mary’s and lunch in Hugh Town. We met up again at the hotel in the early afternoon for a walk down to the Lower Moors nature trail. This gave us a chance to familiarise ourselves with some of the island’s flora, from the introduced species such a Bermuda buttercup and three-cornered leek, to the native spring scurvy grass and of course elm trees. On the nature trail we could hear chiffchaff, blackcap and then reed warblers in full voice, but as usual they were not easy to see. A lone male gadwall was visible on one of the pools with common eels splashing about in the main scrape. A few hirundines were overhead but apart from the ubiquitous wren, song thrush and blackbird we didn’t add much more to the list so adjourned for a tea break at a nearby café. Our route home took us via the Old Town churchyard and its most famous resident, Harold Wilson, before climbing the hill to Buzza Tower from where we had a great view out over Hugh Town. We spend a few minutes here enjoying the view before inspecting one of the Bronze Age burial chambers and then heading back to the hotel at the end of a busy first day. Weather: Sunny, 17 degrees Day 3: Tresco & Shearwater boat tip Monday 21 May 2018 We met on the quay and were soon on the boat on our way to New Grimsby on the island of Tresco, our destination for the day. After a short stroll around the bay where I talked about the ownership of this island and the layout of the land, we reached the Great Pool. Several gadwall, mallard, coot and the occasional moorhen were on the water with mute swans and two Canada geese also added to the list. A sedge warbler gave a great display as it posed in one of the waterside bushes, with reed warblers heard at the other end of the pool. There were a good many hirundines over the pool, which included a few sand martins in with the swallows and house martin’s. 01305 267 994 [email protected] www.thetravellingnaturalist.com A good number of the larger gulls were washing on the Abbey Pool where a pair of pochard and their young were cruising the far bank. Having crossed the old heliport, where had a view of a hobby hunting over the pines, we reached the world famous Tresco Abbey Gardens in time for lunch in the café. From the café we added common buzzard to our tally when the resident bird glided overhead. The first part of the afternoon was spent exploring the gardens with their range of exotic flora. There were a good many species from South Africa such as proteas, gazanias, ericas etc. as well as plants from all over the world. The golden pheasants that have been introduced there were much admired as one in particular posed well for us. We finished the tour of the gardens in the Shipwrecked figureheads’ Museum, having looked at the ‘dinosaur pine’ on the way. We had time for a break at the café again before having a look at the beaches on the southern end of the island where a lone dunlin and a whimbrel were found. We also had good views of a meadow pipit giving its display flight and another brief view of the hobby before we had to head to the quay and catch the boat home. That was not the end of the day as we again met on the quay in the evening to head out on the evening boat trip called the ‘Shearwater Special”. This took us out to the island of Annet where we had a good display of puffins; a couple of distant peregrine falcons perched on the island as well as a scattering of guillemots. There was some evidence of migration as we saw swallow and sand martin heading north. Towards the end of the trip we went a little way north of the islands and enjoyed good views of a large flock of manx shearwaters gathering on the water as the light began to fade and we then headed back to St Mary’s. Weather: Sunny, 20 degrees Day 4: St Agnes Tuesday 22 May 2018 It was a nice bright morning as we headed for St Agnes, although there was a cool north east breeze blowing across the island. We began the morning by heading towards the west side of the island to explore the beaches around Big Pool, the largest body of water on the island. The first beach is always worth a few minutes and this proved to be the case with turnstone, whimbrel and a curlew feeding along the shore. On the far beach a female white wagtail was flitting about, coming quite close at one point. Our route then took us beyond the farming area to Castella Down, passing the stone maze allegedly built in the late 1600’s by the lighthouse keepers, with a few gannets feeding offshore. As time was passing we began to make our way to our lunch stop at the only pub on the islands, The Turks Head. The afternoon walk saw us heading south to the headland called Wingletang Down. We had a look across the bar to the Isle of Gugh that gets cut off over the high tide period before following the coast path to Cove Vean from where we heard our first cuckoo of the trip. Just before this we found a spotted flycatcher that had found a sheltered corner in which to feed. From just beyond the bay we could see four razorbills on the sea at the entrance of the Cove, who had a kittiwake in close attendance. As we walked across the heath I talked about the name of some of the areas and looked at the flora, which included tormentil and lousewort, as well as some small examples of yellow-horned poppy that was growing in the sand at the top of Beady Pool, the local name for Wingletang Bay. We bumped into a few stonechats, including some young birds not long out of the nest. A couple of wheatears were added to the list before we began our walk off the heath along Barnaby Lane. We had been getting nearer and nearer to the singing male cuckoo all afternoon and I was optimistic we would see it from the lane. It did take a bit of finding, even though it was quite close to us, but in the end everyone was able to see it through the telescope as it perched in one of the hedgerows close to the track. A nice way to end our time on this south-westerly outpost of inhabited Scilly before we caught the boat back to St Mary’s. 01305 267 994 [email protected] www.thetravellingnaturalist.com Weather: Bright with a cool NE breeze, 20 degrees Day 5: St Mary’s Wednesday 23rd May 2018 After yesterday’s cool wind, today was the hottest day of the week, a glorious day to be out and about. We set off from the hotel out along the coastal tracks away from Hugh Town to explore what is known locally as “The Country”. Porth Mellow, Porth Thomas and Porth Loo were all rather quiet as far as wildlife was concerned, so we continued to add to our flora list as a wide variety of species were growing in the verges, including one of the scarce species in the shape of some common broomrape plus lots of sea/wild radish, wild carrot, etc.