Wanstead Birder: November 2026

When Rob floated the idea of going down to the Scillies for the annual late summer birders pelagics I was in two minds. My only prior experience of a true pelagic trip was (I think) the last ever pelagic trip the Scillonian III did. It never featured here as it was in August 2008, before this blog existed. I remember being violently ill for most of the day in a force 7 gale, sleeping quite a lot, and not being able to get on the one and only Wilson’s Storm-Petrel that appeared in the slick briefly. Not that great! Wilson’s Storm-Petrel has remained a gap on my list ever since. They are seen from land more these days, a function of more birds in our region, but my days of driving down to Porthgwarra on the strength of a good forecast are long behind me. So when Rob mentioned he was thinking about it I really wanted to go and really didn’t want to go. As you will have guessed by now hope triumphed over experience.

I booked the tickets, £350 for four trips on consecutive days. Two full days and two half days. Expensive as a single outlay, but also on a per hour basis pretty decent. That of course was before I’d added on petrol to Cornwall and back, a night in the Premier Inn at Bodmin ahead of the crossing, the Scillonian to get over there (a foot passenger return was £240 or thereabouts!!), and four nights on St Mary’s. This latter expense is even more ludicrous than the ferry, so egregious that the only option that felt even remotely realistic was camping on the Garrison. I suppose people must pay it, but self-catering accommodation or bed and breakfast on the Scillies is simply outrageous. It shouldn’t be allowed, no wonder people eschew holidays in the UK. I didn’t really notice it adding up as it was a series of disparate expenses paid at different times, but later it dawned on me that I’d spent £1000 before even a sip of beer at The Atlantic had passed my lips. And this was camping! Jeez.

However I cannot deny that it was very pleasant, a simply lovely place, magical even. Then again think what else you could do with a grand, where you could go (pretty much anywhere), and that is what for me puts it into perspective. Anyway it is done now, a sunk cost, water under the Sapphire's hull. But that Wilson’s Petrel is by far and away my most expensive tick ever.

Porthgwarra from the Scillonian

We left on a Thursday night after work, Rob patiently waiting for me to finish when he could have left much earlier. We broke the journey in Bristol in order to do a bit of colouring-in and arrived in Bodmin close to midnight, the last guests to check-in to what was a completely full hotel. Clearly not everyone is that sensitive to price. Or maybe it’s that there are no options and you have to suck it up? I slept for what felt like a millisecond and was up early for the short hop down to Penzance, enough time to pop into the Hayle to get the trip list off to a start. Then to the park and ride to dump the car before getting down to the harbour. And there she was, the Scillonian III, an old rust bucket in her last season before she retires and the Vietnamese-built Scillonian IV takes her place. The new boat will shaves an hour off the crossing apparently – not sure this fully appeals to birders who view the trip as integral part of the experience.

The Scillonian III docked at St Mary's

Hugh Town Bay

We left our luggage near the Garrison crate; we would not need to pick it up, it would get taken straight to the camp site. An excellent service but remember you can fly to anywhere in Europe for less! It was a lovely day, and although we had both taken our motion sickness pills they were probably not going to be needed. All in the mind anyway. Picking a spot on deck we settled down to what we hoped would be a legendary crossing in terms of rarities. Ha! As if. Nothing of note, too calm, too sunny, a few rafts of Manx Shearwater and some point and some Med Gulls near Penzance. Indeed this was the forecast for the entire weekend. Hopefully Bob Flood and the crew of the Sapphire would be able to pull something out of the bag despite these conditions, especially, I hoped, small Petrels with dangly legs. Mega seabirds from southern oceans were probably off the cards but you don’t know until you try!

We arrived on St Mary’s at the ideal time for lunch. The Mermaid is closed, possibly permanently, after a winter storm earlier this year flooded it so instead we went to the Atlantic. I don’t know if Stugeron is supposed to be taken with Proper Job but I tried it anyway as the water looked like a mill pond. The pub was doing a roaring trade but there was plenty of room. After a nice little lunch we did some shopping for provisions at the Co-Op and then walked up the Garrison. We had booked a pre-pitched tent will full amenities rather than taking our own. This was double the price, but still a fraction of bricks and mortar accommodation. An enormous tent with three sleeping “rooms” with inflatable mattresses, a big “living room”, and a porch which contained a stove. We also had a table, chairs, a picnic bench, a cool box that we could replenish with icepack from the freezer at reception, and our own Song Thrush. Into this went the four bottles of wine I had judiciously brought with me. Meursault, Cote-Rotie, Bourgogne Rouge and a Macon. I also brought two proper wine glasses, there is nothing worse than drinking wine out of a plastic beaker. If we were going to camp we were going to do it in style.

At about four-ish on Friday afternoon we sauntered down to the harbour. The MV Sapphire was waiting at the side, and a few birders were assembled, one in camo which I thought was quite endearing. Turns out this guy was Richard Stonier, a quasi-member of the team these days. Somehow stayed upright the whole trip with bins glued to his face with one hand and calling out birds, whilst methodically chucking chunks of bread into the wake with the other. His third hand dealt with a slow drip of some vile chemical that was essentially dynamite for tube-noses. Just as we were required to hand over our tickets Rob amusingly dropped his in the harbour. I took a photo of it as it floated away just in case this would mean the difference between Rob getting on the boat or sitting despondent on the quay as I sailed off, but luckily this was not strictly necessary as they had our names.

We headed out of the harbour and sailed around St Mary's to the waters to the east of the island. Once in position the skipper, Joe Pender, cut the engine and dumped a horrible basket of decomposed fish overboard. We then drifted away from the slick this created and watched the birds come in. Occasionally the engine was restarted to take us back up the now lengthy slick and closer to the birds. It took no time at all for a Wilson's Petrel to come in, it might even have been the first bird to do so. The oil forms a much calmer patch of water with barely a ripple, and the Storm-Petrels linger above it, skitting back and forth, up and down, dipping constantly as some disgusting morsel presents itself. Obviously it's helpful having one of the world's foremost seabird experts in the form of Bob Flood standing at the wheelhouse calling the birds as they come in, but the Wilson's are actually easy once you get your eye in. I think we had five of these and only two European Storm-Petrels on this particular outing, but the views were incredibly good as the birds passed the boat at close range. Photography was extremely hard - the autofocus on my little Sony box of tricks is impressive but wasn't fully up to the task. Or maybe that was me. Certainly Joe had no issues stood on the prow with a huge prime papping away - my issue was that if I let go of the side I tended to lurch somewhat - the sea was incredibly calm but a small boat sideways to the current nonetheless bounces around quite a bit. I did OK I felt, but having now had a play with my new A9ii how I wish I had purchased it earlier in the summer as I suspect my hit rate would have been significantly higher. No matter though, I was there to see the birds, and so nearly 18 years after I'd missed my one and only chance of Wilson's Petrel, I finally added it to my UK (and World as it happens) list, #462. Back in 2008 European Storm-Petrel had been #258. I've done a lot of birding between then and now, but this bird has always held a special place in my list of misses - it gets commoner every year seemingly yet I'd never really bothered with it, I guess I wasn't especially attracted by seeing a small distant speck from Pendeen or wherever. And I'm glad I hadn't, this was the way to see this bird. We also saw a Fin Whale on this trip and plenty of Short-beaked Common Dolphin. We returned to St Mary's elated, and at nearly 10pm returned to the Garrison to cook up a feast and demolish a bottle of Burgundy.

Manx Shearwater

Wilson's Storm-Petrel

Fulmar

Wilson's Storm-Petrel

The next morning, Saturday, we were up early as always happens when camping. I am not a natural camper, but this had been reasonably comfortable and easy, as frankly it needed to be for £40 a night each! We noted a few birds around the tent including our remarkably friendly Song Thrush and a Blackbird that was only a little more reticent. Then it was down to the harbour again for our second pelagic, this time an all day affair. Joining the crew as before was Lily the Spaniel, on a constant circuit for food, or for Dolphins to make friends with. And also Higgo, that stalwart of all things Scilly. He had been on the Scillonian III pelagic in 2008, right at the back shovelling the chum with a huge grin on his face and he didn't seem to have changed very much at all. This time we headed south, once again in flat calm conditions, conditions in which seabirds that rely on wind to majestically transit the oceans simply sit on it instead. Yay!

Collared Dove

There isn't much to tell, nearly seven hours at sea to the area known as Pol Bank picked up all the expected birds but numbers were very low - two Great Shearwater, two Cory's Shearwater - both sitting on the sea in rafts of Manx Shearwaters. There were five Sooty Shearwater along the way, and this time we had eight Wilson's and five Euro Stormies. I know that some reading this may think this sounds like a monster haul, five UK ticks in the space of a few hours perhaps, but given the counts I had seen from prior Sapphire trips this was actually slim pickings. Sorry if that sounds like ungrateful moaning! However it was also just a very nice day out. Many of these birds I had never had such good views of and it was great to be in out on the water in shirt sleeves. Sooty Shearwater in particular I find remarkable, the distances it travels versus where it breeds, it is incredible that we see it here. I suppose you can say the same about Arctic Tern. When you see a bird like this Canary Wharf feels very far away. Back on land Rob and I did a circuit of Lower Moors to try and build up the list a little bit, and ended up at Porth Hellick for an obliging Wood Sandpiper. The last bird I had seen at Lower Moors was a Black-and-White Warbler, back in 2011...