The Price of Yearlisting

Is chasing around after stuff. So it was that I was back bothering the grebes again this morning...

This time I lugged the Big Scope down the cliff to Blackball Rocks themselves - well, to a bit above them, as it was pretty choppy. It was also raining, the wind was onshore, and it was markedly colder than yesterday. Happy happy joy joy.

Naturally I got into my seawatching groove and an hour and a half of scanning and rescanning the spread of grebes and divers passed very quickly indeed. I would have stayed longer, but I had neglected to bring serious handwear and once the rain got through my gloves my fingers started to suffer. [[Whine whine, bleat bleat...]] As I'd given it a good look, I decided to head back.

To the birds; the grebes were in their usual formation of groups of 5 to 40 in an arc at roughly Petitor range, with odds and sods scattered around. I got to 139 GC Grebes, plus the RN Grebe [which was, as expected, a right little git; being finally nailed on wing pattern when it wingflapped while hiding among GCs!] and a Slavonian, which looked really odd with it's neck stretched up so it could see over the swell [all the grebes were like this - looking into the wind, naturally...]. Once I was sure it was a Slav and not a BN, I was suitably chuffed - like CScoter they're getting really scarce on my Patch, having until recently regularly wintered off Meadfoot.

I got even more chuffed soon after that, when I picked up a 2cy Black-throat hiding among the RT Divers :D [[And no, to those who may be wondering, this was not 'ID'd on flank patch alone' but on the full range]]. Trivia time; you might be vaguely interested to know that Black-throated Diver is actually more common on my Patch than Red-necked Grebe - though most of the former have been off Hope's Nose. At Blackball, RN is level-pegging at 3 each. There were at least 24 Red-throats, one of which seemed to be moulting into s/pl already, and a couple of which came in fairly close. 7 Razorbills, a Cormorant and assorted Shags made up the numbers on the sea, with 18 Gannet and a Fulmar overhead.

After lunch I headed back out to do the Waxwing check, found my first female Blackcap on Patch this winter, then gave the grebe-count another go. With better visibility [and a better angle] [plus possibly more birds present] the number was pushed up to 180. This is a site and Patch Record for me, beating the long-standing record of 157. Which is nice. Also nice were the 2 Brambling out the back, and the single Redwing still hanging on despite the Blackbirds' best efforts.

My Patch Yearlist now stands at 38.