October 5th 2008

 

Woke up in Brest to a howling gale and some choppy looking seas. For a while it looked to be touch and go as to whether the ferry would go, but in the end, we set off with a very light load as quite a few folk chickened out. It certainly wasn't for the feint hearted! Needless to say I saw bugger all from the boat apart from huge walls of water and large quantities of spray, and was quite pleased to get onto dry land when we arrived. Spent the afternoon heading into Lampaul (the main town) getting food, drinking cider, and generally being on holiday. Migrants seen along the road included chiff, goldcrest, whinchat, golden plover and sparrowhawk, along with the ever present marsh harriers, choughs and dartford warblers. At our house at le Stiff (east end of the island) in the evening, 3 marsh harriers errr.....harried, and a lapwing was an extremely mildly exciting flyover.

 

October 6th 2008

 

An early morning jaunt around the stiff revealed bugger all. Later in the day I had a look round Prad Meur, a boggy coppice in Lampaul, where a bit of patience wheedled out a firecrest. Very quiet all round today, but hired a bike, which is vital on the island as you can't take a car, and you can't hire one when you get there. 

 

October 7th 2008

 

Another early bash around the Stiff revealed nothing more than the usual chiffs and goldcrests, so I headed off towards the reservoirs in the centre of the island. A few Song thrush and Blackcap en route indicate a light arrival over night. All of a sudden a big brown shape got up from the bracken at the side of the road....blimey!.....a juvenile night heron! A good record for the island, listed as 'annual', but when looking at the 2006 annual report, I saw that there were no records that year. Not totally annual, then, and still meriting capital letters on the excellent birding Ouessant site.

 

After a quick look at the reservoirs I headed down to Prad Meur, where I bumped into a french birder who fortunately spoke excellent english. We chatted about various things, and were in the middle of a pleasant conversation about the current global economic crisis, when two small children with bins came clambering through the brambles, jabbering away in some foreign language. French, most probably. My new friend then turned to me, and calmly declared "they have just found a Grey-cheeked thrush" without swearing or nothing. And bugger me they had -  I saw it for an excruciatingly brief few seconds. What a little stonker it was though, and an excellent lifer.

 

I saw other birds that day, but who cares what they were after that.

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October 8th 2008

 

Headed out to the reservoirs early am, which have some brilliant looking habitat but have very few birds around them, so end up birding the cover nearby and got a noice Yella-braahd worbla. Also, hundreds of song thrushes around and a bit of vismig with skylarks, chaffinches and siskins going over. The rest of the day was spent doing a tour of the whole island on our bikes and having a three hour lunch so not many birding opportunities, so the only other bird of any note was a flyover snow bunting.

 

October 9th 2008

 

Another very quiet day birdwise, with the only thing of note being a firecrest at the Stiff early in the morning.

 

October 10th 2008

 

A total change of pace today with constant vismig going on overhead, large flocks of chaffinchs, siskins, bulfinchs, a flock of grey wagtails,which was a bit weird, and thousands of meadow pipits. A walk round Pern in the west of the island in the morning, underneath all this movement, revealed a big female peregrine, a really approachable juv merlin, which for some reason I didn't take a photo of, and this incredibly obliging snow bunting, which I took lots of photos of.

 

All this action had died down by the afternoon, and an afternoon wander around Kadoran and its heather moorland type habitat (atlantic heath, I believe it's called) was quiet, with only a few wheatears, and some clouded yellow (a butterfly, not a bird). I also nearly had a near run in with a rather brutal looking goaty thing. It bottled it in the end though, but I was worried for a bit!

 

October 11th 2008

 

The last day gets off to a good start with a black redstart at the Stiff, and then while having breakfast, a serin fies over the house. I got a little excited about this, thinking it would be of the same quality here as it might be in Scilly (Scilly rares tend to be Ouessant rares, and vice versa) but it seems that there is a light passage of them in mid october. Still, another nice one to get. Then, after a lunch consisting mainly of cider, we headed to lampaul to find a few souvenirs. While waiting for the shops to open in the churchyard, I became aware of a paleish looking bird grubbing around in the flowerbeds. Frustratingly, I couldn't see anything but movement, but luckily, just as I was about to move, it flew up and landed on the church.

 

So my final bird of the trip is a goodun, a rosy starling, and it was very pleasant watching this bird salying forth from its churchy perch, in rather the same manner as the spotted flycatcher it was sharing its base with. Well, I say final bird, but it wasn't really, cos I got loads of med gulls, a sooty, and two balearic shearwaters from the ferry on the way back.