This time last year Chris, Steve, Al and me decided to bok a weekend of pelagic trips with Scilly's Pelagics (see here). Partly because the other three still needed Wilson's Petrel for their British lists and partly because, due to covid and illness we'd not been able to celebrate my 60th or Chris, Steve & Al's 50th birthdays. With Scopoli's Shearwater and South Polar Skua also being seen last year I was hopeful of a new bird for my British list! I'd been on pelagics with Joe and Bob in 2007 and 2011 and seen Wilson's Petrel before but they seem to be increasingly common so we were hopeful of seeing several..........this 'severa'l exceeded our expectations.........
Driving down Wednesday morning we stayed at my old stomping ground in Hayle. My grandparents had a place in the town and we used to spend all our summer holidays either there or on Dartmoor. Unbelievably my wife's family also used to spend their summer holidays in Hayle and we'd probably seen each other as kids on the beach or in the local cinema!
After a few beers in the various hostelries on offer we had and early night and drove down to Penzance the next morning to get the Scillonian. We were coming off by plane so Al And Chris dropped the car off a t parking near Lands End Airport whilst Steve & I looked after the bags.
Grabbing a bacon butty and a brew from the Harbourside Cafe we joined the queue to join the flat bottomed scow commonly know as the 'vomit come't or Scillonian III. Getting a good spec alongside the starboard rail, so we had the sun behind, us we settled down for a bit of a seawatch during which we met up with two other Cheshire guys - Dan Gornall and Dan Owen. We knew Joe took shark tagging trips out Thursday evening and birders were welcome on a first come first served basis so we decided we'd try and get on that as none of the others had seen Blue Shark and there was also a good chance of seeing several of our target species - including Wilson's Petrel!
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| The Hilbre crew board the Scillonian |
Arriving on St Mary's we dropped our bags off at our accommodation before grabbing some lunch and relaxing before the evenings trip.
What a great start to our pelagic weekend. Five Blue Sharks were caught and tagged before releasing and we saw several Wilson's Storm petrels along with Cory's and Great Shearwaters attracted to the chum slick.
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| Blue Sharks - you can see the tag hanging down from just beneath the dorsal fin |
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| Above and below: Great Shearwater |
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| Abpve and Below: Wilson's Petrel |
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| Cory's Shearwater It was good to catch up with old friends aboard the mv Sapphire including Scott who used to be a Hilbre regular before he moved to the Scilly's.
A happy group disembarked to the Mermaid where a few celebratory pints were quaffed before stumbling to our rooms for a few hours sleep before the local Herring Gulls woke us at 5 am! Friday was another evening pelagic and the start of the birding pelagics proper. |
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