A Flying Visit to Berry Head

A midday commitment plus rain on the way and a brisk to "Was that your hat?" wind severely curtailed my options today. Knowing how blown out the Nose would be, and not wanting to risk my dodgy heel on the rocks, I elected to zip over to Berry Head. After all, figured I, there's a nice sheltered bit of habbo in the Quarry for me to find anything that's been blown up by these winds, and then there's always a nice quick seawatch before I have to head back.

I limped down to and all around the Quarry, and was rewarded by finding a Blackcap. Which quickly unfound itself. Woohoo.

Not too put off by this, I headed up the the Seawatching Point, to find [Devon Birder] and [Young Devon Birder] there. We were soon joined by [Famous Devon Birder] and later by [Devon Birder]. Though the conditions looked really good, with truly impressive seas and a nicely angled wind, the hoped for petrel [either one of the two seen recently, we really weren't fussy! ;) ] failed to appear.

I diligently counted everything I saw, and thus in just over two hours passed south;

Balearic 1

Manxie 2

Pomarine Skua [dark juv] 1

Bonxie 1

Eider [imm. male, very close] 1

Red-breasted Merganser 2*

Common Gull 2

Lesser Black-backed Gull 4

Razorbill 99

Guillemot 31

Auk sp. 42

Gannet 61

Kittiwake 116

Plus a whole bunch of Herring Gulls and a score or two of GBBs.

A Great Northern Diver was found by [Young Devon Birder] very close in off the Outer Platform - always a pleasure. The Harbour Porpoises put on a good if intermittent show, with the odd full breach. Unsurprisingly, land birds kept a low profile.

Passage died, the rain started and I had to go in quick succession [this is mere fortuitous timing, I assure you...], it had been, despite the paucity of numbers, a good seawatch - the good birds we did get were very nice [and well enough spaced to enjoy instead of just to record, as sometimes happens] and the company was excellent, which always helps when its slow ;)

This afternoon, when I realised that the rain wasn't going to stop [bloody weathermen - [Famous Devon Birder] is very right] I shamelessly had a nap.

I'm not old, just a night worker!

[* When these went by, I remembered I still need R-B Merg for the Patch Yearlist; "Drat!" was the polite term...]]