Cliff Swallow on Scilly

The last week of September 2000 was looking good for transatlantic arrivals. James McGill and I had already bounced on to Scilly the previous week for Solitary Sandpiper – the comedy of errors that day is worthy of a tale in its own right, and in the end we only saw the bird in flight, but that, of course, was enough. So the following week we provisionally booked flights on to Scilly on spec for Thursday 28th and I booked the day off work. But nothing much had happened, there was nothing to chase, so we decided to def out, cancelled the flights, and I drove into work. As I arrived in the car park, ‘Cliff Swallow, St Mary’s, Scilly’. Oh crap!

Cliff Swallow, St Mary's, Scilly (Photo: © Dave Morgan)

We couldn’t now make it down to St Just in time for our original flights, and others from there were booked up. Dave Morgan, then of Birdnet, was on Scilly anyway, so we were getting regular updates and the Cliff Swallow was clearly showing well over Porthcressa. So we relied on our usual fallback for getting to Scilly on the day, the afternoon Newquay flight. James and I made it with ease, and Paul also did – just! But this time we were four – Phil Sydenham was at the Hayle when the swallow news broke, but couldn’t get booked on a flight from down that way, so had headed back up to Newquay.

As we approached the magic isles, the wind was getting up, and the pilot was evidently worried about crosswinds. We circled a few times before he decided they were too strong to land the Twin Otter in. Gut-wrenching! We headed back, but to St Just, where Skybus decamped the passengers into two Islanders– happily they also thought it better to put all the birders on the first one. Islanders can handle crosswinds better probably than any other small plane, but the landing was still pretty hairy, crabbing in low and then up into the wind at the last moment to make the runway. Phew, we were down, and safe!

Now we had to try to see the bird. Unfortunately it had got mobile and lost itself, probably somewhere in the Porth Hellick area, so we legged it down Salakee Lane and started looking. This was stressful – Paul and James were OK for staying over, but Phil and I both needed to get back off again that night if at all possible: I needed to be back in work, but in his case the reason was more personal – he’d just left his old mum and his dog sat at Newquay airport!

Cliff Swallow, St Mary's, Scilly (Photo: © Dave Morgan)

With no further sign of the bird, Phil and I therefore legged it back up Salakee in time for the last flight, gutted but knowing what we had to do. Then we found out that all remaining flights that day had been cancelled due to the winds – ours had been the last one that made it. Differing emotions at that moment, as I knew I could at least say I had done all I could to get off when I eventually got back to work, so was OK about it, but Phil had some frantic organising to do.

Then we heard that Paul and James had just relocated the swallow over the Loop Trail, and the views they’d had were, well, ‘You don’t want to know, mate.’

We hared back down Salakee as fast as we could, but the bird had disappeared again. Looking down Porth Hellick Pool, I noticed a single hirundine close in to the sallows, but couldn’t get a good look at it. Down to the hide, then – I opened the flaps and a hirundine whizzed past my nose just a few feet away. It was it! It was the Cliff Swallow! And it kept doing these close flypasts up and down for at least the next half an hour, during which time we were joined by Paul, James, and a few other birders. Even better, the Solitary Sand walked into view, so we had great views of that too!

It was a joyous evening, and Phil even managed to sort out his mum, though it meant his dad and a friend doing a 200-mile round trip down from Wellington and back to pick her and the dog up. We got off on an early flight the next morning and I was back in work in Taunton for midday. Then, just as I had managed to do a half-day, another Cliff Swallow broke, this time on Portland. Dorset tick! So I bunked off at 4 pm and got down to the Verne in time to see that one too. Happy days!