Wednesday 16 May 2018

Bits and bobs of local quality in fresh north-easterly

One of those seawatches where a commitment made you leave a good hour before you really wanted to and unsurprisingly a Pomarine Skua was probably available, if it didn't climb in the fresh north-easterly, about 1130 (per Rossall data)

Sea from Knowlys road 0845-0930, outfalls from Ocean Edge 0950-1000, north wall 1005-1040
Little tern - one fishing and showing well for five mins before drifting out of sight 0903-0908hrs
Little Gull - two ad summer (or 3cy) together heading into bay 0906hrs. Thought they were black tern for a split second as the light was such all I noticed was the jet black underwings!
Arctic Skua - dark morph on then in 0914hrs
Sandwich tern - 16 in +/- fishing en route
Common scoter - min of 420, a fair proportion continuing into the bay
Guillemot - 10 floating in at yellow buoy range, mostly just before I left
Raz/guill - c10 distant as above
Gannet - 5 - all 1035-1040
Manx Shearwater - 1 - 1035
Arctic Tern - two on outfall railings
Better than mine! (thanks Malcolm)
1275 big seagulls on skeers, mostly 2CY or 3CY Herring
Shag - long staying 2CY shag close inshore off the Head, then flew towards wooden jetty
Eider - 85
Great crested Grebe - still 7 (3 pairs)

Grey Seal - 1

Burnet Companion IOY on Heysham Nature reserve (per Steve)