Seals can turn up anywhere along this coastline and will even venture up the Camel Estuary to the fishing harbour of Padstow. Godrevey Point and Newquay harbour are other well known places on the north coast for watching seals. The best conditions are during settled sunny weather when their fins can be seen breaking the surface as they feed on plankton.
Oceanic Sunfish appear later in the summer when the water is warmer. These strange disc shaped creatures often break the surface with their floppy dorsal fin. When scanning with a telescope from Pentire Point Terns, Divers and Auks can often be seen feeding on sandeels where tidal currents meet at the mouth of the Camel estuary. Manx Shearwaters have been recorded in their thousands and in recent years increasing numbers of Balearic Shearwaters have been recorded.
Around the cliffs, grassy slopes and inland arable fields Rock Pipits, Meadow Pipits, Linnets, Stonechats, Skylarks and Goldfinch are common resident birds. These iconic birds are slowly recolonising parts of the Cornish coastline and have recently been recorded in the area.
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Easy hike From Lead Mines. Plan Your Own Tour. Information Elevation m. Weather Forecast - Cornwall loading. Swathes of pink-flowered thrift and white bladderwort cover the slopes, and the charming spring squill speckles the short grass with its pale blue flowers.
The air is full of bird life, if you keep your eyes peeled. Look out for the noisy little stonechat and the mellifluous skylark. Raptors include the brown backed kestrel, typically hovering above the grass as it searches for food. You may catch sight a peregrine falcon — bigger than the kestrel and with distinctive grey and white markings. The peregrine rarely hovers and is often seen high in the sky, wheeling and turning and at times dropping like a stone as it swoops down the cliffs. If you are very lucky, you may catch a glimpse of the Cornish chough, recognised by its sleek black feathers and distinctive red beak and legs.
The chough is beginning to re-colonise the Cornish cliffs after a long absence. From the top corner of the car park take the footpath to the right of the National Trust map and information board. Soon cross a field and go through a gate to join the coastal footpath, signed 'Rumps'. Turn left along the Coast Path. Go through a gate dogs on lead here. Go up steps and continue steeply uphill and then downhill, and through another gate.
Go through a gate and pass a side path to Pentire Farm. Reach a junction above The Rumps. Take the right-hand branch downhill, and go through a gap in the wall to explore The Rumps.
Returning from The Rumps, take the right-hand path from the gap in the wall and rejoin the Coast Path. Pass a signpost to Pentire Farm but keep to the Coast Path. Go through a gate and continue round Pentire Point, from where splendid views of Polzeath Beach and the Padstow Estuary open up. Follow the Coast Path for the next mile 1. Cross a small stream by the small sandy inlet of Pentire Haven.
Ignore the path, signed 'Pentire Farm', that runs inland from this point. Follow the main path steeply uphill above the inlet of Pentireglaze Haven and then zig-zag downhill. Go through a gate and cross the head of the beach.
Turn left by houses at a T-junction with a track, and follow the track inland. On your left is the Rumps headland with The Mouls islet. To your right is Doyden Point at Port Quin. Behind you is the Camel Estuary; the headland with the daymark is Stepper Point. As you walk along the coast, you'll likely see a number of gulls gliding along the cliff edges.
The large ones, with black feathers all along their back and a red mark on their bill, are Greater Black-backed Gulls. The Greater Black-backed Gull is the largest member of the gull family and a bird of formidable size, with a wingspan of nearly 6ft. Unlike other gulls, the Greater Black-backed Gull is highly predatory. Young birds are a significant portion of its diet and it tends to live amongst other seabirds where it can eat the neighbours.
It has also been known to swallow whole rabbits and even eat young lambs. It often steals food from other seabirds using its large size to intimidate them into dropping it, and consequently it is sometimes referred to as a pirate. About a mile out into the bay on your right, lies the wreck of the SS Sphene. The remains of the ship now rests on the sandy seabed in 22 metres of water.
At the start of the 21st century, the wreck was snagged by a trawler which ripped off the winch and foredeck. Despite this and some collapse of the midships due to corrosion over the decades, the wreck is still fairly intact and popular with divers as it hosts a lot of marine life.
The twin-headed promontory known as The Rumps is formed from hard basaltic rock and projects north into the Atlantic Ocean. Its two headlands lie east-to-west: The Mouls lies off the eastern headland; the western headland is named Rumps Point. The name in Cornish is Din Pentir , meaning "fort at Pentire".
Three ramparts banks and ditches span the narrowest part of the promontory. These date from the late Iron Age and were once topped by wooden palisades. It is the protruding part of a large surrounding reef which rises from the sea bed some 30 metres below the surface.
At mid-tide, strong currents rush through this shallow channel between The Rumps and The Mouls which are often visible on the surface. The Mouls is also referred to as Puffin Island as it is one of the last remaining breeding places for Atlantic puffins on the coast. Other seabirds including gannets also breed here. The Puffin population in Cornwall has declined dramatically from a population of many thousands at the start of the 20th century to around 30 birds by the year Puffins are long-lived birds that only produce one egg per year so anything which quickly kills off a lot of the adults has a catastrophic effect on the population.
Their demise is likely to be due to lack of food in particular sandeels though it's not completely clear how much of this is due to overfishing and associated damage to the marine habitat by e. The name "thrift" has been suggested to arise from the plant's tufted leaves being economical with water in the windy locations where it is found.
It's common all along the Cornish coast and in April-June produces pale pink flowers, hence its other common name: "Sea Pink". The plant grows in dense circular mats which together with its covering of pink flowers gives rise to another less common name: "Ladies' Cushions". Ocean sunfish can sometimes be seen on hot summer days basking on the surface, with their fin flapping out of the water as they lie on their side sunbathing. They are extremely weird-looking fish, resembling a large round dinner plate with no real tail, just two large fins at the top and bottom and two smaller ones on the sides doing the flapping.
The average weight of a full grown adult sunfish is a tonne - the largest known bony fish, which is particularly impressive on a diet principally of jellyfish. The reefs around the headland provide a habitat for lobsters and crabs. Buoys and flags are likely to mark strings of pots. Crabs and lobsters can re-grow lost legs and claws, and will even cut off their own leg or claw if damaged so that a new one can regrow.
This has lead to one method of fishing, which is intended to be sustainable, where just the claws are removed and the crab is returned to the water. However, it has been found that a significant proportion of crabs die when have been declawed, which makes the practice controversial. The survival rate is significantly improved if just one claw is removed, so it's possible that there may be a middle ground with improved sustainability.
The white flowers along the coast in July and August which resemble a more compact version of Cow Parsley are the delightfully-named Sea Carrot. Unlike Cow Parsley, the flowers start off pink and become white as they open and sometimes have a single dark red flower in the centre. The Sea Carrot is technically the same species as a wild carrot, from which the carrot was domesticated, but is shorter, stouter and more splayed out than a wild carrot.
The two converge the further north and east that you go in Britain: West Cornwall is therefore the pinnacle of Sea Carrot evolution. You should avoid touching the leaves of the Sea Carrot as they can make skin hypersensitive to ultraviolet light which can result in blistering caused by extreme sunburn.
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