Should Have Gone To Prawle..

All four days.

I mean, come on - a frickin' Bee-eater!!!!



Ahem.


Cutting off the whole rant about why I didn't go when I considered it each time, I'll talk about what I have been doing instead;
Two days on't Moor and two days at Hope's Nose.

There, done.

Kidding.

Ok, the Nose. Two seawatches more for practice than in any real hope of scoring a passing Diomedea spp.. The Gannets did their best impressions, btw, but really need to work on them... ;)
First up, the 'ordinary' birds - Kittiwakes were pretty consistent, coming in their usual pulses but not in any real numbers; about 10/hr on both watches. Gannets were a little more interesting, with maxima of 80/hr south [tailing off] on day one and 110/hr north [fluctuating] on day two. Fulmars were probably locals milling, with no marked passage. Manxies were low thirties south on both days with a few north - again very even. A group of 8 Sarnies went south on day one, and a one bird passed north on day two.

Now to the Ore Stone, where 390+ Guillemots were present on both days, but the notable - very notable - event came on day two, when in good light a pair of Razorbills were clearly among them! Being the best part of a klick offshore, the Ore Stone is not easy to do much more than count [and then you need lots of mag and good light] - this time I not only had the vis. but the Razorbills were sitting in nice easy poses, too. :D

Day one saw a lovely Balearic go by; a really light one - in wing moult - with white right down between the legs. Also two Med Gulls, an adult and a 1s, hung around offshore for a while. A bunch of Common Scoters had a whale of a time flying back and forth, being right buggers. It went like this; 20 came north, but 9 split off and went back south - 10 went by south - 4 went by south (!) - 10 came north - 3 came north. So... how many Scoters were going to St. Ives?

Day two saw my first skuas since the 8th. A light morph Arctic was a long way out as it trolled past south, and something else was even further out. It looked very very interesting, but while it was hanging around it stayed a huge way offshore. Eventually it seemed to think about heading north, but then stalled twice and on the second one it stayed down and didn't reappear. It was nice and bouncy [my first thought was "Tern", which is always promising], with a lot out the back and a nice pale bit on the breast. I think it was a 3 or maybe 4 c.y. Long-tail, but I'm just too rusty on them to be sure. Drat and double drat.

Vexing little skuas aside, both days were better than I expected them to be and certainly gave good practice on the regulars in tricky conditions.

Up onto t'Moor... I went first to the north Moor; I'm not saying where as I met a family of Red Grouse [ :) ]. It's been a good year for them, for me. Less protected and more surprising was a Dipper!* On the Moor proper, all under the open sky and everything.. I assume it's a non-breeder kicked off the best bits and having to lurk. I had a good walk - nice to get some exercise for the poor old legses..

Today I was up on the South Moor, and as I met no rarities I can tell you I walked one of my favourites - Whiteworks to Fox Tor to Duck's Pool to Broad Rock to Plym Ford to Eylesbarrow. I met lots of Wheatears, many of them juveniles and one of them the palest male I've ever seen, he was practically white! Blended in beautifully with the lichen-covered granite. I did not get rained on, though the wind was..brisk.. and the clouds threatened all sorts of soggyness. Of interest, there were a lot of big gulls up there today, mostly Herring, naturally, but at least one LBB and what looked like a Yellow-leg [didn't get a chance to interrogate it properly, mind, but what I saw looked good.] Also as much for the exercise as the joy of the Moor, though plenty of delectable solitude was on offer - it was pretty quiet for a June weekend. Funny, that.. ;)


You know, I have a burble about seawatching that I've been thinking on, but I'm out of time. [Stop cheering!] Maybe later.



[[*This is one of those things that I wonder about; why are Kingfishers Schedule 1 but not Dippers? Postcards on an answer, please.]]