Red-rumped Swallows and Glossy Ibis

We've had a particularly exciting autumn at Marazion Marsh this year.  It has probably been one of the best for catching up with Spotted Crake, as mentioned in my earlier blog, with up to three birds and one on show for 40 days.  They appear to have left now but this last weekend  has been just amazing with the arrival of 7 Red-rumped Swallows and 7 Glossy Ibis! Unfortunately the Ibis only flew over (on Saturday, 6th October) before being relocated at Sennen Cove, Land's End 45 minutes later but the swallows stayed two days, Friday and Saturday with a single bird lingering to Sunday, 7th October.

We have witnessed multiple arrivals of Ibis before, although the last record at Marazion involved just a single individual, 27th - 28th September 2009 and they remain of course a very rare bird to Britain from southern Europe. We are wondering whether this species may stay and breed in Britain one year, following in the footsteps of related 'herons' such as Purple Heron, Great White and Cattle Egret and Little Bittern all of which have bred successfully in southern England in the last few years - and all on RSPB Nature Reserves!

Red-rumped Swallows are another one of those rare, southern European species which occasionally reach our shores - although not usually in flocks like this!  At Marazion, we have just one previous autumn record - of a single bird on 19th August 1998. Very occasionally 2-3 may turn up but in my nearly 50-years of birding, I've only ever seen a handful of singletons so to have a whole flock on our reserve takes some beating. They were sharing the airspace with 120 Barn Swallows on Saturday and a handful of House Martins. All these birds are really quite late in the year to be seen in such numbers - but then it has been a late breeding season and I've had Barn Swallows in the nest at home which only just fledged last week! Red-rumpeds don't breed here of course but will have arrived on the strong south-easterly winds which have been such a feature of late. If you are here birding at the moment, you are probably in for a treat as the winds are set to continue - goodness knows what else is out there!

Good birding!