Common Rosefinch - Scilly Day 2, 12th October 2025


This year has had a lot (a serious lot) of very early starts.  My average wake up time across the year is way before 6am, and I'm often on patch or seeking a bird at the first glimmers of light.  The second day on Scilly started off a little differently with a much needed lie-in, and I got out of bed at a luxuriously late 6.35am.  A slow breakfast, half a mile walk around Porthcressa, and a coffee and at 9am we headed out to explore St Mary's, or at least Old Town, Porth Hellick, Upper Moors, Longstones, Carreg Dhu and Penninnis.

I'm birding with some very good, talented, experienced birders this week, and also people I don't know very well.  This means the pressure is on a little to establish credentials - I feel that I have to prove I can find a bird, identify a bird, be useful to the group.  So when we arrived at Porth Hellick to search for the Common Rosefinch I was delighted that it was me that was lucky enough to pick out the bird amongst a flock of Chaffinches, and fluke a couple of decent photos of it.  Some part relief, some part pride, just pleased I haven't made myself look a fool.  Though read on, with a sense of foreshadowing...


A Wryneck showed very briefly near the riding school, and we searched for Yellow-browed Warblers without any luck.  A steady easterly wind and a mini influx of Stonechat early on had encouraged us to seek migrating birds, but it was very quiet in general on St Mary's.  The onion bhaji sandwiches at the Longstones Cafe restored some energy to weary legs, and we decided to go to Penninnis for better views of Wryneck (which we didn't get) via Old Town because there had been a very elusive Rosy Starling which we had missed 4 or 5 times in our way through.  The pressure was on.  Not only was I birding with some seriously talented people, the Rosy Starling would be my 300th UK species of the year, fulfilling my aim of a Big Year.  As we walked past the Old Town Inn I caught a flash of a pale Starling shaped bird just as it dropped over the pub.  Owen urged us to retreat a hundred metres to check it out, and, though my legs ached with fatigue, I trudged back.  Seeing the bird on the wires near but not with Starlings, I got a head on poor view of a hunched and pale brown bird, and having seen no reaction from Owen, assumed it was a Sparrow.  I said as much.  Owen took his cue from me and we both dismissed it in a fug of tired low-expectations.


Neil questioned my identification, and I fired some photos off to prove it was a female house sparrow... only to find that he was right.  The juvenile Rosy Starling was sitting right in front of me, clear as day, and I managed to find a way to make myself look a fool!  I'd found my 300th species, only to dismiss it as a Sparrow in front of some seriously good birders.  The joy of that landmark, the happiness of seeing a Rosy Starling and the tempering embarrassment of such a mis-identification combined to leave me red-faced but happy.  There are days when you might feel that you're better than you really are, swollen with confidence and drinking your own Koolaid... when the birding world brings you back down to earth with a clatter.  I suppose this is the day I'll remember for two things: achieving 300 species in a year, and for seeing a Rosy... Sparrow?

A female-type Black Redstart showed really well on Porthcressa Beach as we neared our accommodation, tired, needing a brew and looking forward to a celebratory beer or two.  We watched it flycatching for 20 minutes before it was chased off by Stonechats.  Though I've made a fool of myself in a small way, I'm pleased to be on St Mary's, pleased to be in good company, and, if I'm going to be foolish about birds, I might as well go all in foolish about them.



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