Thursday 20 May 2021

Early morning Puffins

Strong SE winds all day. The rain started about 10:30 and never really stopped.

Seawatch report from Pete:
Sea 0600-0730 heysham north wall: 
Arrival met by a distant outbound procession of auks and Sandwich Terns which ceased abruptly at 0625 so an earlier start would have helped! 
Highlights: 
two Puffin out together at 0614
4 Sanderling 
1 dark morph Arctic Skua.  

Others: 
Sandwich tern 42 out, 2 in
Razorbill/Guillemot 59 out
Red Throated Diver 1 out
Gannet
1 Pink foot floating out.  
4 Swallow north
Common Scoter dearth continues.

Grey Seal 1

The only other bits are from my walk out to the skear at low water (MD)
At 3m low water height, there is very little skear showing. Most of what there was was taken up with the large gulls, c400 mainly Herring, feeding on the seed mussels.
Unfortunately, that left little room to walk without disturbing them, but there wasn't much around. The only waders apart from Oystercatcher were Turnstone c30.
Eider just 2 seen flying north.
Great Crested Grebe 1
Great Crested Grebe in the rain!
You can tell by the size of the rain drop splashes how heavy it was.

There were at least two seals feeding, marked by a cloud of gulls above them.

A bit of a washout, but at least my new lightweight waterproofs passed their test.

Hopefully more to come, but I doubt it.