Reserves Update: Please note that due to COVID-19 restrictions Windmill Farm car park is now closed until further notice.

Freathy: 30 Manx Shearwater plunge-diving this morning. (M Jordan)

Stratton: Red Kite flew North at 07.40. (B Bryne)

Gulval: 1 Red Kite over Sainsburuy’s 12:00. (S Rogers)

Truro River: 10 Black-tailed Godwit. (P Fraser)

Camborne: Red Kite flew North, mobbed by gulls. (S Marshall)

Penzance: 1 Swallow along the promenade. (J Evans)

Lockdown birding ideas: How many birds can you identify in this clip? Worth watching to the end! (Sent in by K Dalziel) –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMXD4h5w8D8

A Cornwall Lockdown Diary, Day 4:

Unsurprisingly, raptors don’t feature too highly on my garden list. I have glimpsed the odd Sparrowhawk hurtling through the branches or calling to a mate, and a Kestrel has flown over once or twice. But we are spoilt for Buzzards. I don’t think they have nested in our trees (though I can’t be certain), but they are very much in evidence year round. They are so well disguised amongst the branches that it is only when they glide down from their perch that you realise they were there all along. It is their plaintive cries that make you look up and there they are – mini eagles, floating round and round on these warm March thermals on those great sails of wings. Today there were four of them, way, way up in the blue, thoroughly enjoying the buoyancy of the spring air and the effortless ride upwards. They mewed to each other in what sounded like pure joy. Just for the hell of it, one of them folds its wings Peregrine-like and plummets down a couple of hundred feet before spreading those wings and recapturing the up-draught again. Gosh, what I’d give to be a Buzzard today! Free of the misery of the terrible virus news and the prospect of another early evening No.10 Broadcast!

Simon Marquis