St. Swithin's Day Massacre

If the old wives' tale about St. Swithin's Day is true, then you can put the sunblock back in the cupboard......

Dragging my behind out of bed a good 2 hours later than I really ought to if I was serious, I tooled up and went my way to Berry Head. There I found no less than 5 brave birders, [with 2 more to arrive later] including Notable Names from the Devon birding scene. And Joe "Just call me Joe Ray, please?" Ray. Apparently there'd been "sod all" about, but within 30 seconds of my arrival a juv. Yellow-legged Gull put in an appearance, followed swiftly by a Balearic Shear. This evidence of perfect timing on my behalf seemed like a good omen.

Though not at first, as indeed it was quieter than I'd hoped. Manxies and the odd Balearic were moving, the usual suspects were, too, but not in any real numbers . Then things changed. A birder who shall be known as Paul used his gift of prescience to turn around and look behind him, his words; "I've got a big swift...." had everyone else turning too. It was a big swift, a very big swift, with a big white belly...... We few, we happy few, we band of jammy buggers!

The Alpine Swift evaded a not-very-close call with a Peregrine and then evaded us too - Joe went storming down with his camera, but it went zooming off north over the Bay...... Further and further and further I followed it in my scope, because as soon as it passed the Pier it became a mighty Patch Tick!! YES!*

Then, while we were still grinning like idiots over the swift, a Balearic came and treated us to a point blank feeding display - tripping like a Stormie and performing very shallow low-angle dives while the water rolled off it's back like mercury. Wow.

Unfortunately, the weather decided to be unhelpful - turning the wind to the west and the clouds to sunshine. A few terns [ a Sarnie south and 3 Common north] and a Whimbrel [there's always a Whimbrel!], plus a fast-moving dark morph skua sp. [probably Arctic, definitely going north] were the other early highlights, before passage dropped by an order of magnitude. While the calmer conditions did enable better views of the local Harbour Porpoises - which eventually got quite close - they weren't what most of us had come for. In ones and twos the watchers departed, and by 1415 I was the only one left [casting dark looks skyward and muttering about the forked tongues of weather forecasters], but I resolved to stick it out and wait for the promised front...

And wait.

An- ok, enough of that! I was not without reward for my stubbornness - a Big Boss Bonxie at Ten past Three [think 'Mean Green Momma' from Little Shop of Horrors] was indeed Bad. A nice pale adult [the dark cap just made it look 'arder, if that were possible] it came down looking for a fight and when nothing had the guts to oblige, it sat on the sea for a bit looking menacing, before carrying on south. Another, this time an immature, followed later. A different juv. Yellow-leg, which had buzzed past earlier, returned to keep an eye on a boat full of anglers and showed well, if a little far 'round to the left. Finally, the rain arrived, the wind kicked to south, and then towards south east, and the rain got squally. Joy!

Balearics started appearing - some with groups of leap-frogging Manxies [they didn't want to stop and raft, but weren't up for flying fully either] - and a couple passing so close you lost them behind the rocks in front of the watch point! My final total [in 10 hours] was 17 - not counting lingerers {especially one which was following a Manxie around}. 255 Manxies, 166 Gannet, 63 Kittiwake, and 49 Guillemot [plus 1 Razorbill] show how much was passing. It is mid July, of course. Still, I would have liked a Sooty...

I cut it off at 10 hours because the wind had shifted so far to the east that it was coming around the corner and doing a fair job of blowing me away... Very hard to watch when you need both hands to hold on to your bumbleshoot - a bit frustrating, as I'm sure there were more birds out there between the rain bands. Still, 10 hours watched and some lovely birds seen - those Balearics were gorgeous, the Bonxies were badass, and a surprise Alpine! Result. :D

[[*Rules are Rules; once it's in the Defined Patch Area, it counts!]]