Monday 11th August 2014

   Last day on Scilly. A much more relaxing day today. Just spending time waiting until the Scillonian II sails at 4.30pm. Maybe find something good, blown in by Bertha, that no-one had found yet?

   A look at Porthloo beach produce not a lot, except a couple of Whimbrel. Sadly, they didn't want their photos taken.

   I sort of decided this would be a butterfly day, and with 2 endemic subspecies on Scilly, this would be a good time to get some shots. We walked along Porthloo lane towards Lower Moors, finding a few Butterflies as we went. They included Common and Holly Blue, Speckled Wood & Meadow Brown (the 2 latter species are the endemic subspecies i mention earlier).

'Isles of Scilly' Speckled Wood (ssp. insula)

Pied Flycatcher

    While we were in the Rocky Hills side of Lower Moors, Rob had something move about in the trees. So while i tried to get some more shots of the endemics, he tried to find what it was...He found it after about 5 minutes, and it turned out to be a Pied Flycatcher, a 1st winter bird probably.

Pied Flycatcher

   We walked through Lower Moors, and had very little. Stopped & had a cup of Tea at Old Town cafe, and returned back throughout the 'Dump Clump', and on past the dump. We stopped near there, as there were quite a few Butterflies there. Meadow Brown, Small White, Speckled Wood & Holly Blue......

'Isles of Scilly' Meadow Brown (ssp. cassiteridum)

'Isles of Scilly' Meadow Brown (ssp. cassiteridum)

'Isles of Scilly' Speckled Wood (ssp. insula) 

Holly Blue

    ......and then it was all over, on the ferry and back to Penzance, or so we thought.....

   The ferry journey started, and we saw a huge flock of Shags, one stood out though, it was very pale. I put the bins on it, i should have got the camera, it had a pale patch along the upper side of the wings too, and pale below. I had seen this before, and tried to get a few birders onto it. I am pretty certain it was a Mediterranean subspecies desmarestii. Sadly no photos, so probably never prove it either way, oh well never mind. We gradually started seeing some seabirds, not in big numbers though, Manx, Great, Cory's & Sooty Shearwater were all seen. Then as we got to Land's End we began to see a few more Manx, then more, by the Rummel Stone there were probably a hundred plus, with  feeding Gannets. The most noticeable birds though were Manx Shearwaters, after starting seeing them near Lands End, they continued all the way along the coast to Mousehole. We estimated 5000+, and in that we managed to pick out just one Balearic.

   So a fantastic weekend was rounded off with an amazing journey back.

   We had from the ferry:

Shag (200+ & 1 ssp. desmarestii)
Great Shearwater (5)
Cory's Shearwater (10)
Balearic Shearwater (1)
Sooty Shearwater (5)
Manx Shearwater (5000+)
Common Tern (5)
Sandwich Tern (6)

    Can't wait to go back.................