Out first thing with Samuel this morning. Surprise location - Maenporth.
Parking behind the beach, we set off up the hillside to the south with reasonable hopes of 'the bird' still being there. The narrow muddy path enclosed within Blackthorn and scrub soon gave out to a more open area some few hundred yards further on.
Two blobs on the sea down below soon resolved in Samuel's scope into two Eider - and then one into a 'Northern' Eider, the other into a King Eider. Excellent!
Putting the news out (twitter and texts) between us and time to try and enjoy the bird more. Unfortunately distance and early morning low light levels (cloud cover, but it did mean there was no glare or direct sunlight to contend with) meant views were a little unsatisfactory. Soon joined by J St L, and the birds were then pushed inshore to us by a local fishing boat attending its nets. We were able to scramble a little further down the cliff in the dead bracken and eventually enjoyed fairly good views. Sails, white front, pinky upper bill - all very nice!
Eventually we left the birds as they moved back towards Nansidwell direction with the probably quite sad yet admirable aim of getting the bird on the Falmouth patch list. A bit of a slog up the opposite side of the Maenporth valley cliffs, and almost back to Pennance Point, and yes, there they were. Still.
Drizzle and cloud starting to come in, and no exciting birds whatsoever encountered on the golfcourse, highlight a sneaky bit of 'handgolf' with a lost golfball. Maybe 30 Mipits in the next field, then back to the car (now joined by a good half dozen more whose decamped birding occupants we could already see wending their way up to the King Eider viewing stations beyond).
Top bird! Hope is it stays and continues to move into slightly better plumage of course.
c.60 Shag, 3+ GBBGulls and a host of 'large gulls' (I didn't look at them) attending a fishing boat also present, Fulmar and Gannet too offshore. 1 Common Gull off Maenporth, and a Slavonian Grebe initially out in the bay, later off Nansidwell.
On to Swanpool -
A quick look produced no white-wingers of course, Long-tailed Duck still present and 1 ad Med Gull with the BH Gulls.
It's been a bumpy ride!
