25 August, 2010

With more a fizzle than a bang

Were birders' hopes of a seafest deflated today...

I zipped [well, I tried to zip, anyway] over to Berry Head straight from work. Expecting, I admit, to be hideously gripped off by tales of Fea's Petrels and so forth... Instead I found some of the greats of Devon birding [oh yeah, and Joe "Sleeping Beauty" Ray, too! ;) ] feeling rather soggy and dejected, having spent the whole day there for 3 Stormies and single figures of shears.... Ouch.

I hung on with the hard core until half six, and while it wasn't spectacular [especially considering the conditions - oh deary me] there were still some nice sightings; a Stormie doing its best to break the sound barrier, at least 3 Bonxies [including one being fought off by a particularly hard Geeb] and 3 Arctic Skuas, 4 whole Manxies and one Balearic [so at least the all-dayers got into double figures], a swirl of maybe 35 Common Terns, and an even-more-dejected-than-the-brave-watchers Wheatear. Star performance came from a pod of Bottlenose Dolphins - at least 10 and they came past close and shallow :D

In other news, my Work List is now a mighty 30! Latest bird being a singing Chiffchaff before the rain really kicked off this morning.

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