Cornwall day 3, Tuna at the Land's End!!!

Today, I could wait no longer, a proper Seawatch planned at legendary sea-watching spot Pendeen lighthouse!! But first there was a certain Wagtail I had an issue with and as it was on the way, we decided to hit Marazion Beach again, to be honest I felt we had a chance at it, most of the reports had been early morning and there would be much less disturbance, gotta be our day for sure!! Wrong!!😂😢 No sign again!! Although it was reported a half hour after we left and a birder we met there had seen it!!! I feel the Birding Gods don't want me to see the blighter😡!!! However once again there was good Wader action with a  a couple of Knot, good views of a Curlew Sandpiper and an extraordinary tiff between a couple of Sanderling, a few pics below!!

Little Egret on Marazion Marsh, no sign of the Purple Heron

Pied Wagtail

Dunlin

Sanderling and Ringed Plover

Dunlin

Knot & Turnstone

Knot

Knot

Sanderling Standoff

At least today's mysterious Bunting was a Bunting, though just a Reed Bunting

Reed Bunting

Curlew Sandpiper

White Wagtail

So defeated once again, we continued on to Pendeen, I wasn't very confident, no wind and a complete lack of locals with their scopes trained on the sea suggested sea-watching wouldn't be that productive!! 

However it wasn't that bad with lots, by my standards anyway of Manx Shearwaters heading south, had 4 groups with over 50 in them and lots more small groups going through a rough estimate of 600 in the time we were there, not much variety mind, a couple of Common Scoter and about 50 Gannets in all!!

Vocal Raven seems to be a thing in Cornwall

Linnet a small flock around!

Think this a juvenile Lesser Black-backed Gull, but happy  to be corrected

Cracking scenery all around as usual on the coast here (M)

Cornwall's mining heritage on view in the distance (M)

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The local Herring Gull posed well for Margie (M)

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Pendeen Lighthouse (M)

A few pics below from the Seawatch, you know the excuses, poor light, small birds moving fast at great distance etc etc!!

Gannets

I had a thought that the 2nd and 3rd birds in this pic might be Balearic Shearwaters but the considered opinion was the picture is too bad to tell 😢😂

Several Manx Shearwaters far offshore

Possibly the reason the Shearwaters stay offshore, a Sparrowhawk on the rocks below us!

So not frame filling pics, but gives some idea of the action, very enjoyable and as at the Lizard yesterday we were visited by some Choughs!!! 

Sadly no big Shears again but highly enjoyable, we decided to move on and visit Land's End, suppose it's one of the things you have to do when you visit Cornwall!! 

Arrival at the massive Car Park full of cars, confirmed this was going to be a tourist trap of the highest order, so gritted the teeth and headed on in!!! To be fair it wasn't too bad!!

Me leading the way into tourism hell !! So Brave !!😂 (M)

Most sea-watchers will be familiar with this illusion (M)

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1st & Last

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The Iconic sign which we couldn't be arsed to queue up for!!!

Now there is a lesson in staying alert, we had wondered about admiring the scenery, I was obviously scanning the sea every now and then, though nothing much going through, it had got very hot and we were just heading back to the center to get an Ice Cream, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw something jump in the sea!! "Think that was  a Dolphin" I said to Margie, we both put our bins on the sea, after what seemed an age another one jumped, didn't look right for any Dolphin, eventually after getting a few pics my suspicions were confirmed, Tuna!! Or at least some sort of very large predatory fish, there followed an amazing half n hour or so as we and a gathering crowd, watched the fish, not sure how many, but a sizeable group, presumably feeding on small bait fish with a large amount of Gulls in attendance!! I have never seen this before and it was amazing to watch, it was also very difficult to photograph the fish giving very little clue when they were about to leap!!! Which means there are quite a few pics of Tuna butts!!😁

Gannets

Difficult to judge size, but they seemed massive, at least Dolphin size, the Gulls give some idea.

A pretty awesome experience with a top predator. We pulled ourselves away, had our ice cream, we decided to end the day at Porthgwarra another legendary sea-watching spot, the road to it is pretty mental as well!! Still we got there in the end, to be honest we were knackered and couldn't be arsed to walk right up the cliff but we climbed up the left hand side and had a look out, couple of very distant Porpoise and a few Gannets the best of it!

Robin

Gannets

Buzzard

Margie obviously braved the falling rocks, Health and Safety gone mad!!

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Another good day with some great encounters, the Tuna will live long in the memory, though the elusive Wagtail and the missing Shearwaters are beginning to irritate!!