I'd heard on Facebook that there had been some Choughs around the Newquay area... they are gradually spreading up the North coast having initially bred down on the Lizard.
So I popped out to east Pentire headland between Fistral beach & the Gannel at Crantock and lo and behold there were 6 Choughs feeding on the short cropped grasses on the clifftop.
They were concentrating on feeding & oblivious to all around them. Peoples dogs bounding around & holidaymakers taking pics of the view & selfies with the waves in the background etc.
Always exciting for a Cornishman to see our "National" bird, but to see 6 together... Wow!
As our regular seal survey out of Padstow was postponed due to fierce North Westerly gales we still needed to complete a land survey of this part of the North Cornish coast for our annual census of seals for the Cornwall Seal Group Research Trust (CSGRT).
I was asked to cover the section between Pentire Head at the mouth of the Camel estuary & Port Quin bay beneath the Lead mines car park near Polzeath.
I got lucky!
It was blowing a hooley from the NW but luckily I found some seals in the lee of the headland, 2 of which were "bottling", 1 was a large male that only surfaced a couple of times and the final one was a beautiful juvenile female that decided to haul out onto rocks just below where I was positioned on the cliff edge.
She took no notice of my presence despite a strong wind blowing in her direction and proceeded to clamber about on the rocks and attempt to go to sleep. This proved difficult as it was very awkward terrain & it was at low tide so as soon as she got comfortable the tide started to flow & eventually wash her off the rocks.
I took a few video clips and lots of photos...
Here is the link to the video on my YouTube channel.
https://youtu.be/9ias7_oizWA
Here are some of the images from my afternoon.....
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