The second UK record of Great Blue Heron was found by the same local observer, Ashley Fisher, as the first record of this American vagrant in December 2007, on St. Mary's, Isles of Scilly on the evening of Tuesday 14th April 2015. Over the next few days the bird was seen intermittently at various locations. Many of the initial group of twitchers failed to score & heard news of its reappearance on The Big Pool, Bryher, as they arrived back in Penzance. With much more positive news from the Monday 20th & Tuesday 21st sightings, I decided to make the long trek south on Tuesday night.
I departed home 11pm Tuesday night & arrived in Penzance 6am Wednesday morning. After some breakfast in the café I boarded The Scillonian with a day return ticket & sailed at 9.15am arriving St. Mary's at midday. There were quite a few birders on board & I spent a very pleasant journey chatting with a Norwich resident I hadn't seen for many years, catching up on all the latest news of various denizens of that most bird-centric of cities. Also saw several Manx Shearwaters, 4 Great Skuas, several Gannets, Fulmars, Kittiwakes as well as Swallows, a warbler & incredibly, a Hoopoe, which I unfortunately didn't get onto, d'oh!
With no definite news on the bird upon arrival in Hugh Town, I dithered on the quayside about whether to go on the boat to Tresco, as did a few others. The decision was made when the boat sailed... The remaining birders, including myself, made for Lower Moors & then onto Old Town. As we wandered around to Porth Hellick the group had whittled down to three: myself, Hadyn from Home Counties & Malcolm from Suffolk. We were in one of the hides at Porth Hellick when news reached us of the Great Blue Heron being on seen Bryher. We hastily made our way back to Hugh Town where we found a group of a dozen birders awaiting the arrival of "Falcon" which they'd chartered to take them to Bryher. Unfortunately, the craft was only licensed for twelve passengers! So, we chartered it ourselves but obviously had to wait until returning at 3.20pm. Due to the tide "Falcon" didn't return until near 4pm. By this point we'd resigned ourselves to missing the "Scillonian" sailing back to Penzance at 4.30pm & staying overnight B&B. After all the time & effort involved so far, with the bird definitely there/on view, it would seem pure folly to not avail ourselves of the opportunity.
At the quay on Bryher there were birders waiting to return to St. Mary's. They confirmed the bird was still present. We made our way to the Hell Bay Hotel. Walking down towards the Big Pool & looking back to the right I immediately saw the bird. Fantastic views as it crept about hunting for prey. The monster bill seems even larger in real life! After a while the Great Blue Heron moved to an adjacent grassy area before disappearing in a smaller pool further to the right, where it was invisible from our position. It then lazily flew over the bank to Popplestone Cove. We then had to leave to sail back to St. Mary's.
After a lengthy & tiring search around Hugh Town for B&B we eventually found somewhere. One of the guys had a pedometer on his iPhone & informed us we'd walked 12 miles that day! After having no sleep the previous night, some food & a couple of pints in the "Bishop & Wolf" with Hadyn & Malcolm, saw me safely off to the Land of Nod.
Next day we had until 4.30pm until the "Scillonian" sailed. I took a leisurely stroll around St. Mary's, something I hadn't done since 1995. So little had changed over the last 20 years, it seemed like just a short while since my last visit. My wanderings took me to Porthmellon, Porthloo, Holy Vale, Carn Vean, Porth Hellick Down, Porth Hellick, Higher Moors, Old Town, Lower Moors, Rosehill. We sailed back at 4.15pm arriving Penzance at 7pm. I arrived back home at 4am Friday morning after a bit of motorway madness around Sandbach.
It's great how you can hang out with a couple of people you've never met before for a very pleasant couple of days, purely through a shared interest.
Video by Pete Hines
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