By the time we turned in on Sunday night the temperature was hovering around five degrees. A few hours later it was marginally above one and we were definitely feeling it inside our tent. Having joked about finding ice on the car before setting out on this trip it seemed Read more…
A sunny start on Sunday morning meant an early rise for us not least because of the added energy it seemed to have provided to the dawn chorus. Chiffchaff, Green Woodpecker, Blackbird, Robin, Dunnock and even a flock of Herring Gulls all leant their voices to what was surely a Read more…
It was distinctly grey and overcast on Saturday morning with a cold wind keeping temperatures on the wrong side of double digits. Hardly an auspicious start for a couple of hours at Radipole Lake but we quickly learnt that initial impressions can be deceptive. Walking down the reed lined paths Read more…
Trying to judge the weather for a trip away is very much like backing a horse. You study previous form, expert advice and can even have some one on one time with the beast itself, but when push comes to shove you normally end up just taking a punt based Read more…
Hard as it is to believe but March is already a fast fading memory and with it another month of the Patchwork Challenge has been and gone. I had hoped to have seen my first spring migrants by now but other than a couple of Chiffchaffs which have been singing Read more…
The big natural event during our time away was of course the partial solar eclipse. Being so far South we were only forecast 85% coverage but even that would be better than the cloudy conditions which marred my viewing of the last total eclipse back in 1999. For some reason Read more…
One aspect of Cornwall we really wanted to see more of during this trip were the engine houses which once fuelled a mining revolution. Prior to their introduction, or more accurately the steam engines housed within, the depth at which mineral extraction could take place was limited by fairly primitive Read more…
Back to Cornwall and having already visited the most southerly point in mainland Britain it only seemed logical to visit its most westerly as well, Land’s End. Far better known than the Lizard, Land’s End has a certain mystique associated with it which is sadly spoiled, in my opinion at Read more…
I had been planning to continue the Cornwall blogs this evening but those will have to wait a little while longer following one of our best days birding for quite some time. Earlier this morning the outlook couldn’t have been less promising however with heavy rain battering against the windows, Read more…
On our way back from the Lizard Emma demanded we stop in at the Chocolate factory near Mullion and who was I to say no. My only condition was that afterwards we headed further down the road for our first ever visit to Mullion Cove itself. The name was a Read more…