Our final day on the Isle of Scilly..... everyone had woken up a little groggy from the cursory celebratory drinks the night before, so, to clear heads and make a good start to the day we decided to go and have a nice and greasy cooked breakfast before heading up to the north of the island to look for the Bee-eater that had been hanging around for the summer. The debate was which cafe to visit.... the one near the bank in 'town' or the one a bit further out in Old Town..... the latter was chosen - unbeknownst to us this was to be a great decision.
After arriving at the cafe and ordering, we went outside and sat at the tables, chatting about the weekend so far. Most people had caught up with a new bird or two, Mat Meehan adding the most to his list, and we talked about what we thought was bird of the weekend.... for a few it was the Wilson's Storm Petrel on the friday night, otherwise it was the Great Shearwater landing on the sea next to the boat (myself included - even though I'd seen a couple before and Wilson's was a lifer).
Our breakfasts arrived and we tucked in, halfway through Phil Woollen (whose ears, I've now decided, have been nicked off a bat and attached to his head as he hears everything!) shouted "BEE-EATER!!".... not a second after he'd said it, sure enough the bird called right overhead so we could all hear it, then drifted over the top of us to a headland a few hundred metres away where it hawked for insects along with some hirundines until it disappeared behind the trees. Brilliant..... target bird in the bag and we hadn't even finished breakfast!
Unfortunately my camera was memory card-less as I was putting photos onto my external hard drive and so didn't manage to get any pics, but Jason Atkinson did... you can see it on his great blog A Tale of 2 Halves.
After finishing the breakfasts (which tasted even better after the Bee-eater....) we set off to where the bird was last seen dipping behind the trees in an attempt to try and relocate it. Unfortunately we tried for several hours to no avail, so it was back into town to grab a quick bite before making our way down to the quayside to catch the Scillonian back to the mainland.
The journey was pretty uneventful, very few seabirds until we got towards land and with Lands End and Porthgwarra coming into view we started to get a good number of Manx Shearwater flying past the boat. In amongst them was the odd Balearic and Sooty Shearwater, but things were about to go a little nuts..... it wasn't birds that were going to steal the show.... both Lewis Thomson and myself saw it first.... a HUGE dorsal fin.... a big black triangle, really narrow and tall....... there was only one thing it could be..... ORCA!!!! They were pretty distant and I can't say we had amazing views, but 5-6 of us managed to get a look at the fin as it went past us nearly 2 miles away from the boat (yes.... even though they were that far away, the fin stuck out like a sore thumb through binoculars.... it is 6 ft high after all!).
Awesome.... a perfect end to a pretty mental and brilliant weekend.... I'm looking forward to next year already!!!
Dad and I have really enjoyed reading your blogs about the Scillies! What a great break you had, it sounded brilliant. No wonder you want to go again. Perhaps Dad and I will get out there some day (though I would be wanting to see the gardens rather than the birds)- we'd need you as our guide if we were going to spot anything interesting! Speak soon, love Mum xxxxxxx
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