Twenty-five species turn up on a Ruan Lanihorne birdwatch

A stone bridge over a quiet arm of the Fal estuary made an easy grandstand for ten birdwatchers on Sunday 16 August, as Canada geese worked the mudflats below in their dozens and a common sandpiper stretched its wings on the falling tide.

📷Birdwatching group on the bridge at Ruan Lanihorne - Alison Jones, Gary Batchelor, Jane Attwood, Mark and Becky Greet, Rowena Castillo-Nicholls, Rob Nicholls, Christopher Rothero, David Rothero, and Paul Beadle

A morning on the Roseland

The walk was organised by Connect with Nature, the community wildlife group founded and chaired by Rowena Castillo-Nicholls, who is also the RSPB Kernow Local Group Leader and Publicity Officer for Cornwall Birds. Rob Nicholls led the fieldtrip itself, guiding the group along the shore at Ruan Lanihorne, the small Roseland Peninsula village that sits where the Ruan and Fal rivers meet.

It is the sort of spot that rewards a bit of patience. Wide, sheltered mudflats and saltmarsh open out along the creek as the tide drops, drawing in wading birds and wildfowl that would rather feed unbothered than perform for an audience.

📷Little egret in flight over the water at Ruan Lanihorne

Wings over the water

By the end of the morning the group had logged twenty-five species between them, along with a handful of butterflies on the wing in the warmer stretches of the walk. Canada geese dominated the water in numbers, gathered in loose rafts across the creek, while a little egret was caught mid-flight, legs trailing and feet flexed as it lifted off from the mud.

📷Common sandpiper on the mud at Ruan Lanihorne

Working the tideline

A common sandpiper worked the water’s edge in typical fashion, bobbing along the mud before it paused with its wings half raised. Out on the open water a mute swan surfaced through a scatter of foam, neck arched and feathers ruffled, unbothered by the small crowd of binoculars pointed its way from the bridge.

📷Mute swan swimming at Ruan Lanihorne

Visitors from the Midlands

Not everyone on the bridge that morning was local. David Rothero and Paul Beadle had travelled down from the Midlands to join the group for the day, adding two more pairs of eyes to a walk that already had plenty trained on the water and the reeds.

The rest of the group was made up of Alison Jones, Gary Batchelor, Jane Attwood, Mark and Becky Greet, Rowena Castillo-Nicholls, Rob Nicholls, and Christopher Rothero, ten in total by the time everyone gathered for the group photo on the bridge, binoculars and scopes in hand.

Ruan Lanihorne keeps drawing birdwatchers back for a reason. The tide simply does the work, and whoever turns up with a pair of binoculars gets to watch what it brings in.

📷Canada geese on the water at Ruan Lanihorne, Roseland Peninsula