Saturday 2 May 2020

Great seawatch!

Three of us separately covered the sea from the north wall 0700-1000:  The skuas were interesting.  The first (four) Arctic dropped out of the sky down to about 30m above the sea then circled up and headed inland over my head - so nearly missed at the top of the scope, the next two were gaining height steadily but carried on up the Bay.  The Poms on the other hand were a water-hugging, apart from a bit of wheeling, purposefully-flying flock up the centre of the Bay - it did appear at first that one bird was quite a bit ahead of the others which then caught it up; certainly they were at least a scope's width behind for a few seconds.  The two Bonxie were inbound singletons, the first landing on the (inbound) sea early on

Whimbrel - 2+2 in
Pomarine Skua - flock of six light morph adults in at 0815hrs
Arctic Skua - 4+2 at 0740 and 0745 (see above).  All dark/intermediate-dark morph
Bonxie - in then on 0715 and in at unknown time between 0900-1000
Manx Shearwater - 220 seen flying in and others could have been missed; outbound birds ignored but similar impression of numbers
Raz/Gill - 60 mainly in and most after 0825hrs and before 0900hrs
Guillemot - 7 definites
Razorbill - 5 definites
Arctic Tern - 26+5+2 in
Fulmar - one out 0757hrs
Kittiwake - flock 6 in
Common Scoter - 27 seen
Red-throated Diver - 3 in
Sandwich Tern - c30 - more blogging/less movement than yesterday
Gannet - 2+2+2 out