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!