Guess What.... Sea watching off Seaton again!

Well yesterday turned out to be yet another terrific day watching the waves in Seaton Bay!

It was an odd mix of what felt like an underwhelming, under delivering and at times frustrating morning sea watch (so a typical Seaton seawatch!) and then an over achieving evening sea watch which I was absolutely thrilled I took a gamble with.

The hours of darkness before saw a strong south westerly wind blowing for most of the night, which continued throughout Thursday, although the wind turned a bit more to the west as the day went on.  The clouds also cleared, with heavy cloud and a few rain showers during the morning watch but almost uninterrupted blue skies and sunshine for the evening watch.  In between, a wet weather front came through late morning/early afternoon which instigated the change in the weather. 

You can see from my weather summary of the day why I was fully expecting to have a brilliant morning and not so much in the evening.  But this is how my two watches turned out, both from my prime spot of The Spot On Kiosk on Seaton Beach. It was nice to be joined by James Mc for most of the morning watch.

06:10 - 08:10 (west unless stated): 13 Common Scoter (10 east) 300+ Gannets (estimate), 7 Fulmar, 2 large Shearwater sp (ultra distant passing in quick succession at 06:55 just before visibility dropped, we both felt they were probably Greats), 13 Balearic Shearwater, 10 Manx Shearwater, 10 small Shearwater sp., 2 Arctic Skua (d/ph chasing Kitts heading east, then a slender juv west which both had us worried about LTS!) and 19 Kittiwake.

17:30 - 19:30 (west unless stated): 120+ Gannet, 9 Fulmar, 2 Cory's Shearwater (absolutely epic!  They flew west together at 18:55 just after a good flurry of shearwater passage, turning south about half way across the bay. The feeling when the first one came into view with that distinctive wing shape will be etched on my brain for a long time!), 14 Balearic Shearwater (some fairly close), 70+ Manx Shearwater, 1 Arctic Skua (pale sub-adult lingering for half an hour, on sea and chasing gulls), 243 Med Gull (***patch record*** and not expected!  At the start of the watch a feeding flock way to the east seemed to contain lots of Meds, then about half-an hour later they started pilling through west in flocks of up to 60 birds until I finished, although they slowed down for the last thirty minutes. I would estimate the flocks were made up of about 60-65% juvs, most showing a lot of 1st-winter feathering now. An absolutely phenomenal passage), 60+ Black-headed Gull and 45 Kittiwake (many of these came through mixed in with the Med Gulls).

 

One of the closet Kittiwakes passing, a lovely fresh juvenile

 

So in short there were two stand outs from the day, both from the evening watch - two Cory's Shearwater and a mind blowing passage of Med Gulls which was an absolute privilage to witness.  More of this please!

 

Still Watching the Waves

We've had some reasonably good sea watching weather since my last post.  At bit more rain at times would have been good, but the wind on some days has been pretty much spot.  There's some more to come too which I am hopeful about!

I will start with the most recent watch whilst it is still fresh in my mind, this morning.  Conditions were far from ideal, but yesterday ended with heavy rain and a strong south westerly wind so I wanted to chance it incase anything was reorientating or still hanging around.  Desite the lack of wind there was a good amount of cloud cover at the start of the watch, however by the end of it I don't think the conditions could have been worse for this pastime...

Pants!

 

It was so worth the effort though.  1.5 hours from 06:10 gave probably the strongest passage of Gannets that I've seen this year (including plenty of juvs) and an impressive eight Arctic Skuas!  

Full totals (west unless stated):  11 Common Scoter (1 east), 3 Balearic Shearwater, 1 Manx Shearwater, 9 Shearwater sp. (distant), 1 Great Crested Grebe, 450+ Gannet, 3 Fulmar, 8 Arctic Skua (5 west together after chasing Kitts at 06:25, adult pale and dark-phased west at 06:40 and finally a pale immature persistently chasing a Kitt away to the east at 07:30), 35 Kittiwake and 2 Yellow Wagtail (over the beach).

Yesterday, when the rain and real winds were happening, I had time for an evening seawatch from Seaton Hole 17:30 - 18:45.  A nice passage of Balearics and three Arctic Skuas the highlight of this watch, with full totals (west unless stated): 26 Balearic Shearwater, 18 Manx Shearwater, 70+ Shearwater sp. (going both ways further out), 22 Gannet, 1 Fulmar, 3 Arctic Skua (all appeared to be dark-phased, flew in from south, landed briefly then got swept away east with the wind) and 41 Kittiwake.

Back on 14th we had another day of nice blustery southerly winds, building as the day went on.  I missed a patch Cory's Shearwater by about twenty minutes, but a 40 minute sea watch from 13:00 showed 90 Manx and 6 Balearic fly west.  Nice to see so many shearwaters out there, even though they were only small ones for me.  A Sooty few east not long after I left too, so not very well timed at all by me!

Away from the sea I have been lucky enough to see three Ospreys on the Axe in the last ten days, all juveniles and all from my office! One on 12th had several fishing attempts on the lower Estuary and remained for at least the rest of the day and possibly into the following day.  On 18th one came low down the Estuary, then gained height and circled up high above Axe Cliff, presumably then leaving the UK for the summer.   The third was today, and seemed to be as brief as Sunday's as it flew high down the Estuary and looked like it then went straight out to sea.  

Since my last post I have managed my first bit of autumn vis mig too, with a few hours at Axe Cliff on the morning of 17th giving me a Tree Pipit and three Yellow Wags west overhead.  Hardly busy but it's nice to get off the vis mig line for the season!  

Oh and I cannot forget to mention I've had another juv Yellow-legged Gull, a lovely tall and pale bird from a Birdwatching Tram on 11th...

As expected, plenty of first-winter scaps visible

 

And there we have it, you are all caught up!  Hopefully I'll have more skuas to blog about soon. 

More Seawatching

With Cory's Shearwaters reported off Portland on multiple days within the last week, showing they have made it this far up the channel, I have been keen to get down to the sea whenever I've had the chance.

My usual sea view from my favoured sea waching point in Seaton, the Spot On Kiosk

 

An evening sea watch on 2nd August was completely speculative as there wasn't even any wind.  But three Balearic Shearwaters, my first of the year, flew west together at 8pm and made the visit worthwhile. Also 11 Med Gulls west, including nine juveniles.

Yesterday morning (8th) two hours from dawn in more promising conditions gave me a nice little haul, but again no big 'uns.  The shearwaters I did see were two Balearic and one Manx, all west as single birds. 

The main highlight of the watch was a surprise pair of Garganey, including a male (either juv or eclipse adult) which flew west at 06:25.  Another pair of small duck flew west about half an hour later, but neither of these was a male Garganey so they were definitely a different pair and I saw nothing to suggest they weren't Teal.  Also three Common Scoter west.

Another nice highlight was a close dark-phased Arctic Skua which flew slowly west at 06:20.  It came through within the Gannet passage that started up at about 6am, in all I logged 130 fly west including a decent number of juveniles - a promising sign after the bird flu tragedies they've endured in recent years.  Also three Med Gulls west and a half-a-dozen Kittiwake.  A Ringed Plover called a few times but I have no idea which way it was going as it remained invisible.

Finding myself glued to the weather forecasts even more than usual at the moment, longing for some hefty Atlantic storms...

Spring, Summer and Autumn in one post!

Well I did promise I would complete my summer sightings in a blog post, and here it is, with a bit of previously unposted spring action too...

As usual the post breeding passage of wading birds started not long after the northbound passage of wading birds came to an end.  Here were some of the best spring waders I saw this year, only posting now because I didn't blog about them earlier in the year.  It was a shockingly poor spring here, for basically all migrating birds, but especially waders with no big wader days at all.  This lovely Grey Plover on 14th May was probably wader of the spring for me...

Such a smart wader, with a couple of Whimbrel behind

And who doesn't love spring Bar-tailed Godwits.  There were nine on Black Hole Marsh on 24th April, including this group of six...

Such stunning birds - with lots of sleep to catch on clearly!

 

And now to autumn.  Well, 'wading bird autumn' anyway...

No massive rarities as yet but there has been one major highlight for me, with my first (very nearly complete) summer-plumaged Spotted Redshank on the Axe - in well over 20 years of birding here! Thank you Clive for finding it on the Estuary early on the morning of 24th June (never gives up does Clive!). I saw it on Black Hole Marsh once the tide had risen, it did wake up a few times but the only photos I managed were of it asleep...

Absolute beauty.  A rare bird in any plumage here so this was something else!

Otherwise wader-wise during the last month or so, it's been the usual selection of birds including the odd Green Sandpiper, Little Ringed Plover and Whimbrel, with Black-tailed Godwit and Reshank numbers already up to the 50 mark.  I was surprised to see 11 Lapwing too a few days ago, usually only get the odd one until much later on. There has been Sanderling and Ruff recorded as well, but not by me.  Sadly no Avocet breeding success this year, after what was presumably the pair from last year had their eggs predated by a Fox back in the spring  The adults, and a third bird, did hang around for several weeks after, even mated again and looked like they were beginning to settle down on a new island, but this was all for show as nothing came from it.  A realy shame but that's nature.

In the gull department, as expected Mediterranean Gulls have been passing through for about a month now.  My biggest count was 16 on 20th July which included nine juveniles.  Although I havent been looking through the big'uns with the same frequency as in other years, I have still managed two juvenile Yellow-legged Gulls so far...

The first bird on a wet and windy 15th July seemed to be regretting its life choices!

Bird two, already showing some first-winter scaps, taken during a birdwatching tram trip on 28th July.  A lovely 'smooth' and pale bird.

 

I even got my moth trap out a few nights ago for the first time this year, but I will save that for the next post so this one can remain strictly birds-only.  Check back soon...