Feeding Frenzy and Little Gull

Let's get the best news out the way first.... I have finally seen the Little Gull!

On Friday, sure enough Mike B managed to find a juv Little Gull here in the afternoon for the third consecutive day.  I wasn't working and was able to react to the news that it was showing well on Black Hole Marsh.  An absolutely cracking bird in the freshest juvenile plumage...

It really was showing well!

Although spent much of its time looking more like this - fast asleep!  

 

 

 

 

Petite but perfect

Looking at Mike's photos, it looked to be the same bird that he saw the previous day, but amazingly a different bird to his on Wednesday, which was more advanced in it's moult to first-winter plumage.

On Black Hole Marsh, wader variety has dropped but numbers are still really good.  Saying that though there were two Curlew Sandpipers present at dusk tonight seen by Tim C.

The sea is where I am going for the rest of the post, as it has been uncharacteristically busy!

Unprecedented numbers of sea birds have been feeding offshore, in a flock I've blogged about in my last couple of posts.  Ian M made a great count of 150 Balearic Shearwaters resting on the sea on Friday morning from Beer.  On Friday evening the outer part of Seaton Bay was still brimming with feeding Gannets, Kittiwakes and Balearics, joined by at least thirty commic terns and presumably because of these, three awesome Arctic Skuas.  A fairly dark looking young bird which lingered for a while, and two older sub-adult pale-phased birds that powered through west. Five Common Scoter also flew west during my watch.

On Saturday morning, the south easterly wind got them all moving and I tapped on to the end of a cracking easterly passage of Balearics.  I saw 70+ during the time I watched, but Gav had in excess of 300 fly east.  Also around in unprecedented numbers were commic terns. Although nowhere near Gav's count of over 200, I saw 50+, which included singles of adult and juvenile Arctic Tern.  

Saturday afternoon I had another half an hour look at the sea, expecting everything to have gone following the strong easterly passage seen first thing.  However there were still several Balearics milling around out there, with Gannets and Kittiwakes and another single Arctic Skua.  On the sea a close flock of 22 Common Scoter were nice to see.   

Not sure how long this feeding frenzy will last, but I am loving it whilst it's here!  Be good if they drifted in a bit closer to shore though.