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...
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| 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...
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| 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.
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