Eventually getting over to Berry Head this afternoon, it was very much purist's seawatching today - watching the sea! 12 Gannets in almost 4 hours sounds very very bad, doesn't it? 100 Kitts in the same time sounds less bad, but there were 71 in the first hour....
So, a lot of time just watching the sea.
But [and yes, there is a but], as sometimes happens at Berry when it's quiet, if you gave it long enough you did get something, and what you got wasn't bad at all. The first birds I got in my scope were 2 [albeit extremely far out] adult pale phase Arctic Skuas. Coming in 3/4 on with the sun on their yellowy breasts and evidently much tail behind, I thought for a second they were something else. Very buoyant and tern-like they seemed, but then they obligingly banked and showed off equally coloured bellies before I opened my mouth [phew].
A juvenile Pom Skua [yep, another one] was much more obliging - coming in to harry some poor Kitts and getting something that required it to stop for a quick wash before heading on south. A few auks were moving - majority being Razorbills.
Eventually the promised stronger wind coming towards SE arrived, and with it some rain. At last, maybe something will start moving? Yeah, right. It started very well indeed, with two glorious little Little Auks in line ahead, close enough for a good scope view, but not so close as to be through in a flash :). Right before the light gave out, two Common Scoter [male and female] came through on the same line. Nowt but gulls in between.
While all this was going on, a red trawler was hauling and moving, with a huge cloud of birds, but always out of even the Big Scope's reach. That's seawatching, folks!
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