Kynance

Sun set and badger paw print

Just a Swallow, but a December Swallow

The 3 swallows seem to be catching plenty of insects today in Penzance

More 'eastern chiffs'

A very palid pale tea coloured bird, 'tristris' ?

Eastern Winter Chiffs easy!

One of these birds has a very slight greenish tinge to the mantle and rump. 'albietinus' or greener 'tristris'? but no calls to help.

Winter Chiffs 'tristris type'

Similar to eastern types 'and best separated on call

Winter Chiffs 'collybita' type

Winter Chiffs 'abieitinus' types

 

Three-lobed Crowfoot

The ruts and hollows on the downs are already well colonised by this local species 

Foamy Kynance and sunset at Poldu

Lots of tadpoles in ruts on the downs

Red sky in the morning , Shepherds warning.

Common Seal

Common Seals have a more defined muzzle. Common Seals are very uncommon in Cornwall, favouring shallower coastal waters of the East Coast and the lochs and bays of the highlands and Islands of Scotland.

Grey Seal females and Juvs

Seals

Bull Grey seals have a very characteristic profile, the 'roman nose' but females and juveniles have a much more subtle character.

Adult Bull Grey

Frog Spawn

Spring? No, not yet. The local frogs spawn regularly in Nov-Dec very similar to winter breeding European Common Frogs. Some of the spawn is even close to hatching.

December Sun

A warm sunny day today

Kynance Gate - Stones

The Bronze Age (around 1200 BC) settlement of Kynance Gate lies on a gentle slope on the edge of open moorland above a turbulent stream which runs down through a rocky gorge to the sea. ‘Kynans’ is Cornish for narrow valley or gorge and the site may well have been chosen for its easy defensibility on the seaward side. Always worth checking for a passing Wryneck...

Shorty

OK not a frame filler, but a start

Winter Chiff's

Some wintering chiffs from last winter, the first had a thin piping bullfinch/dunock like call.

 

Lesser Scaup

A wing shot of the Lesser Scaup.

Ring-Billed Gull

Showing very distantly

The Downs

The beach this afternoon

Mediteranean Gull

Med with the Ringbilled today along with a couple of Firecrests, Boating Lake- Helston

Ringbill still harrassing the locals

Ring-billed

Wood Mouse out worming, dangerous game with a short-eared Owl hunting close by, Kynance Cove approach Rd. Will try and get some SEO pics soon...

Feeding the ducks and along came a 1st Winter Ring-billed Gull, Helston Boating Lake

Typical for American Gulls, it saw the camera and came in to pose, no bread needed!

Also LT Duck still on Loe pool along with good numbers of chiffs and a few fires

Pied Wagtail - Lizard Village

White-beaked Dolphin - Off Piste - Lyme Bay

Lesser Scaup and some old stuff

Feeding the ducks in Helston, failed the test so must be an escape. Any good ducks should come to bread or they must have been abused and suffered at the hands of their captors. Not like this real McCoy up the coast...

Some older stuff