Dalmatian Pelican – Camel Estuary, off Rock, Cornwall, 16^th October 2016

Monster bird in the haze on a distant sandbank, huge, scruffy and just a hint of grey, ridiculous orange-yellow and grey lower and upper mandibles of bill, very stonky grey legs .... and even more impressive in flight.

So....... . Having completed a truly stupendous two weeks in Shetland, Ken Shaw and Amanda Cioa and I (et al.), departed from Shetland Nature Lodge in the north of Unst early on the morning of Saturday the 15th October, firstly driving to Sumburgh, before secondly flying to Edinburgh and finally driving as far as Preston later on the evening of the same day.

Shetland had involved seeing the following top birds:

In addition, we had seen Osprey, Buff-breasted Sandpiper, Wood Sandpiper, Yellow-browed Warbler, Siberian Chiffchaff, Barred Warbler, Waxwing, Ring Ouzel, Bluethroat, Red-breasted Flycatcher, Hawfinch, Common Rosefinch, Common Redpoll, Lapland Bunting and Little Bunting (amongst other good birds).

(How) could the Scillies possibly be as good?

But first we had a date with one (or two?) long-staying top birds in Cornwall.

Therefore, Ken, Amanda and I were off again soon enough on the morning of Sunday the 16th October, driving further and further south, and then south west, after an excellent breakfast pit-stop at Gloucester Services.

Our first date was with the Dalmatian Pelican which had been all over West Cornwall and beyond since May. (The second was with the Hudsonian Whimbrel, but let’s not talk about that....).

Like the Western Swamphen, its credentials had yet to be adjudicated upon by BOURC, but all the same it needed to be twitched, if only for ‘insurance’ reasons. Ken and I had monitored its presence and moves in the weeks before the Scillies visit, and I have to admit it had worried me when it appeared to have re-discovered its wanderlust in September / October 2016, getting to North Devon at one stage.

However, it settled down again on the Camel Estuary and, more specifically, in the days before we twitched it, it was regularly seen off Rock on the eastern side of the estuary.

This necessitated leaving the A30(T) at Bodmin and taking often very rural roads north-west to Wadebridge and beyond. We were temporarily thwarted by what was probably an accident ahead, leading cars to u-turn, so we followed one (obviously a local) around the scene via some very narrow Cornish lanes.

Finally we made it into the very upmarket Rock (evidently part of the Rick Stein / Padstow effect on this part of Cornwall).

As we drove along the only road into the place we were looking for the ‘lifeboat station’ as per the directions on RBA. It was from here supposedly that the bird was viewable.

As we passed through Rock along the road next to the estuary, a couple of people were visible on the decking out in front of one building who, at least from a moving car, appeared to be birders..... .

We continued on to the pay and display car-park at the end of the road and then assembled our gear and walked back to the said building, which turned out to be a water-sports centre.

Here there were indeed a couple of people (and a telescope and tripod) seeming viewing the object of our quest.

‘How easy is this going to be?’ we thought.

However, it emerged that neither of the two people involved were birders (or, at least, the younger man wasn’t) and worse neither they nor the ‘scope were on the bird! D’oh! We would have to suffer the indignity of finding it for ourselves.

Ho-hum.

I set up my ‘scope and intuitively or not (or maybe informed by viewing recent images of the bird) I scanned the distant exposed sandbank. Not for the first time in the past few weeks I quickly located what was probably it and talked Ken and Amanda (and our fellow viewers) onto it.

For the fourth time in a matter of weeks I was stood next to Ken as he added another tick to his list..... (Western Swamphen, Siberian Accentor, Black-faced Bunting and now Dalmatian Pelican. Not bad!!).

Initially, it was not entirely evident it was the bird; whatever it was it was very large and very white. Was it a roosting Mute Swan, or, was it indeed, the roosting Dalmatian Pelican?

I struggled to convince myself that I had indeed found it, but it became more apparent that it was very large and just slightly grey (oh, and it didn’t look ‘right’ for a Mute Swan).

At this point either it gave itself away by standing up and walking around, or the young man who obviously worked in one of the water-sports places within the building we were standing alongside commented that the rising tide would cover the sand-bank in 20 minutes (or similar); I just can’t remember the exact sequence.

Either way, suddenly the bird was no longer a resting, just slightly greyish-white hulk, it was a real live massive pelican.

I had the ‘scope zoomed up to 60x and enjoyed and shared views as it walked away from the sandbank, and then as it floated around on the rising tide, occasionally going through the motions of preening and feeding; sure enough, it and the sand-bank were slowly enveloped by the rising tide.

Overall, it was incredibly massive with largely (just slightly) greyish white plumage when at rest. The shaggy plumage (especially at the rear of the head) was just about apparent at the range involved. The massive bill was very long and triangular in profile with a deep base, and involved a grey upper mandible and largely orange lower mandible and pouch. The legs were very stout with huge webbed feet. They were a dirty grey.

The bird was indeed huge but it is hard to describe just how huge. It was way bigger than anything else, that’s how huge it was.

And that was before it took off and gradually circled and climbed over the estuary, before flying upstream to presumably roost elsewhere, giving fantastic flight views in the ‘scope.

In flight it was both incredibly powerful and incredibly graceful, flying effortlessly, however and wherever it wanted, despite the attentions of a dwarf entourage of gulls, etc..

The primaries, secondaries and primary coverts of the upper-wing appeared to be mainly blackish (although they may have been parti-coloured dark grey and white) such that at range it appeared that trailing edge and wing-tips of the upper-wing were black, whereas the under-wing was largely grey with just a hint of the upper-wing pattern. The tail was greyish white as was the rest of the under-parts and upper-parts in flight.

I had wanted to see the bird but hadn’t anticipated being so wowed by it. It was truly fantastic to see, especially so in flight. Awesome.

It was then a case of, ‘Over to you BOURC’ (as I may have said before!).

Ultimately, they made the ‘right’ decision, and the bird became the first for Britain; it was announced it had been accepted on to the British list in September 2018.

Dalmatian Pelican, (actually on the River Taw in North Devon in late September 2016, but looking very much like it did when we saw it) on the Camel Estuary, off Rock, Cornwall, October 2016 (photograph credited to Timothy Smith).