Mark Lew1s
My real name is Mark Lewis
Sunday October 15th
Sure as willow warblers follow chiffchaffs, and by about the same number of weeks, the Ouessant trip report follows the Sanday one. A different flavour all together - dessert perhaps, to Sanday’s main course. This one is a family holiday, with fewer team members and much less intense birding - but the birds can be rarer, more surprising, and more numerous, and the weather is generally nicer. The food is as well, although team Sanday do their best to run it close. For some context on the birds mentioned throughout the report, just imagine you are on Scilly - what's rare there is rare on Ouessant too, with a couple of notable exceptions in the form of Dartford warbler and chough (and I guess perhaps marsh harrier too).
As per usual, the birding starts on the boat. As we left Brest in the half light of dawn, the odd Mediterranean gull went past, but the biggest surprise were all of the Arctic skuas. I counted 9 in all, all reasonably close inshore. I’ve seen 4 different species of skua from these crossings but never such a gathering as this. I considered it an auspicious start, hoping that it meant great numbers of shearwaters further out, but I was dead wrong. We didn’t see a single shearwater, or another skua at all during the rest of the crossing. Instead, we had plenty of razorbills, couple of kittiwake, a Sandwich tern and two distant common scoter.
Once on the island, the standard first day unrolled. Get to the house, dump the stuff, buy loads of food, put it in the house, go out for lunch. I managed 10 minutes at the window during a faffing spell and picked up the first Cettis warbler and water rail, but it was about 2 pm by the time I was out for a walk and finally properly birding. We (me and my Dad) headed north from the house, checking a few gardens and the like along the way, before hitting some more open country along the coast. Among the bushes, it was clear that the island was pretty quiet. There were a few chiffchaffs about but not much else. Siskins passed overhead, and the usual choughs, marsh harrier and Dartford warbler added the very Ouessantine background. We didn’t take long to get jammy. Coming up to the ‘Maison du colours’ we noticed the pile of bikes that can only mean one thing. Rare bird. Scanning the garden behind 15 or so other birders, i soon picked up the bird - a juvenile common rosefinch. A pretty rare bird in this part of the world. Not much of a looker but a good way to get the trip list kicked off.
Further north, at Plage Yusin, the beach held common pipits, and both white and pied wagtail, and further round the coast, at Niou, a black redstart fed along a fence and a merlin posed on a distant bail of hay - no doubt struggling to work out which of the many meadow pipits or passing siskin it was going to try to pick off.
We finished off back in Lampaul, where Prad Meur had chiffchaffs, a couple of firecrest and a lovely spotted flycatcher. It all felt a little quiet, but it felt great to be here again.
Sure as willow warblers follow chiffchaffs, and by about the same number of weeks, the Ouessant trip report follows the Sanday one. A different flavour all together - dessert perhaps, to Sanday’s main course. This one is a family holiday, with fewer team members and much less intense birding - but the birds can be rarer, more surprising, and more numerous, and the weather is generally nicer. The food is as well, although team Sanday do their best to run it close. For some context on the birds mentioned throughout the report, just imagine you are on Scilly - what's rare there is rare on Ouessant too, with a couple of notable exceptions in the form of Dartford warbler and chough (and I guess perhaps marsh harrier too).
As per usual, the birding starts on the boat. As we left Brest in the half light of dawn, the odd Mediterranean gull went past, but the biggest surprise were all of the Arctic skuas. I counted 9 in all, all reasonably close inshore. I’ve seen 4 different species of skua from these crossings but never such a gathering as this. I considered it an auspicious start, hoping that it meant great numbers of shearwaters further out, but I was dead wrong. We didn’t see a single shearwater, or another skua at all during the rest of the crossing. Instead, we had plenty of razorbills, couple of kittiwake, a Sandwich tern and two distant common scoter.
Once on the island, the standard first day unrolled. Get to the house, dump the stuff, buy loads of food, put it in the house, go out for lunch. I managed 10 minutes at the window during a faffing spell and picked up the first Cettis warbler and water rail, but it was about 2 pm by the time I was out for a walk and finally properly birding. We (me and my Dad) headed north from the house, checking a few gardens and the like along the way, before hitting some more open country along the coast. Among the bushes, it was clear that the island was pretty quiet. There were a few chiffchaffs about but not much else. Siskins passed overhead, and the usual choughs, marsh harrier and Dartford warbler added the very Ouessantine background. We didn’t take long to get jammy. Coming up to the ‘Maison du colours’ we noticed the pile of bikes that can only mean one thing. Rare bird. Scanning the garden behind 15 or so other birders, i soon picked up the bird - a juvenile common rosefinch. A pretty rare bird in this part of the world. Not much of a looker but a good way to get the trip list kicked off.
Further north, at Plage Yusin, the beach held common pipits, and both white and pied wagtail, and further round the coast, at Niou, a black redstart fed along a fence and a merlin posed on a distant bail of hay - no doubt struggling to work out which of the many meadow pipits or passing siskin it was going to try to pick off.
We finished off back in Lampaul, where Prad Meur had chiffchaffs, a couple of firecrest and a lovely spotted flycatcher. It all felt a little quiet, but it felt great to be here again.
