HERMIT THRUSH - Cornwall 30/10/13

With clear skies and hardly any wind, I was not hopeful of a successful twitch, but being the first mainland record of this species, it was worth a go. I left mine at 12.20am, and after negotiating several annoying road closures, I met Chris Glanfield in Littlehampton at 1.30am. Chris drove down picking up Ads Bowley and Geoff and we arrived at Porthgwarra bang on first light.

The first couple of hours was spent searching, finding signal and chatting to friends, but at 9am the Hermit Thrush was seen and over the next 1.5 hrs we all enjoyed lovely views of the bird preening and feeding on the ground. A really exciting twitch and my first Catharus Thrush.

After this success, we had great views of a juv. Rose Coloured Starling, juv. White-rumped Sandpiper around Penzance, and a superb Grey Phalarope at Roadford Reservoir in Devon. A brilliant day.

 Hermit Thrush at Porthgwarra - the rufous upper-tail contrasting very

nicely with the mantle etc. A well defined white eye-ring and pale

fringes to the coverts......superb!!

 juv. Rose-coloured Starling nr Penzance

Grey Phalarope in Devon