Fun In The Rain

Oh, the wind it doth blow and we shall have some damn fine seawatching!


When the storms come howling in and it starts raining up, most people hide indoors. Not so a select band of deranged maniacs elite birders, who head for the most exposed headlands they can find and offer their suffering [and sometimes their brollies] to the Goddess of Birding, in the hope She will rain down wonderful birds upon them.


So it was that today at Berry Head, I watched for ten [and a bit] hours and the Lady smiled and sent me 33 Puffins! 2 Sooty Shearwaters! 3 Balearics! 1376 Manxies! 3 Stormies! 2 Pom Skuas! 3 Arctic Skuas! 3 Bonxies! 2 skuas I couldn't  safely assign to species! 378 Gannets! 208 Kittiwakes! A s/pl Great Northern Diver! 


Ok, ok, I'm stopping....


I'm not going to go on about this, there will be no more than the briefest mentions of [Famous Devon Birder]'s spawny shear [well done], the invisible Sunfish, low-flying Harbour Porpoises, or pretty orchids. Let alone the Incident of the Big Girls' Blouses...


Suffice to say it was great to get back into proper seawatching [not that I've not been seawatching this year - you've been reading my burbles...  ;) ], with a group of my favourite seawatchers and even some great birds to boot. The 3cy Pom, the second Sooty, the first Balearic, the 4 Puffins. Brilliant! The wind was very tricksy at times- ok it was a right git quite a lot, and it rained, then sunned at us quite viscously, but I think it fair to say a good day was had by all. Even if that little bird's timing was off..