White!

Definitely the colour of the day.

Got out from work this morning to find it all snowing and stuff. Huh, weatherbods actually got it right. Drove home in a lovely blizzard. But only on the high bits. Really altitudinally defined weather, with sleety rain in the valley bottoms and full-on snow higher up. I'd found my car with a nice inch of snow [the heavy wet stuff you have to scrape off] all over it, but arriving home [and actually higher up than work!] the cars were only soggy... All fun and games.

With the snow seeming to be picking up, I decided to be good and wait on it. Driving in snow is only fun if you don't have to worry about other road users.. ;) While I did, I had a little wander online and noticed what Magic Seaweed had to say about the wind. Oh ye Gods and Little Fishes, what a sight! Such a crisp front, with all that gunk, strong winds...  A big SE with a high tide normally sends me to Berry Head, as the Nose can be a mite.. inhospitable, but if it did start snowing a lot later on..? Even worse, the bumbleshoot still wasn't fully repaired after the 31st [it being more broken than I realised].  Sod it! I tooled up for a morning's watch [only a little flask - purely to keep hypothermia at bay ;) ] and  with the snow only settling on cars, I zipped over. [I'm not actually doing the FootIt! Challenge, after all].


WOW!! Big sea, big wind, big tide - spectacular! For some strange reason there was nobody else there... I honestly can't think why. Without a stick I had even more fun getting down in one piece, but made it and tried to find a spot at the Seawatching Spot where I could sit my arse down comfortably. Having set up light in case I was walking there, I didn't have my stool, so this made things interesting. I ended up almost side-on, but at least I was sheltered, and seeing birds!

Well, when the view wasn't blocked by gouts of water, anyway...


The ever-confiding Rockits were their usual cheery selves, coming right up to me to snarf bits of flapjack and shelter from the elements. Meanwhile...
All that melty snow had turned on the SWBCM and a horde of gulls duly descended upon it. Auks [about 50:50?] and Kittiwakes were moving steadily south - though with many Kitts coming to the outfall, counting wasn't exactly easy. I settled for only clicking those definitely passing and so will have a large underestimate. Gannets were thin on the ground, easily outnumbered by Fulmars - it's not often you can say that. 9 divers came past, with the wonderful sight of an adult and 1w RTD plonking down together and staying among the mountainous seas for an hour or so before flying on south. Red-throats aren't normally fans of the Nose, but these two seemed to like it. Two GC Grebes - their heads stuck up as high as possible - plus the usual plethora of Shags and Cormorants made up the rest on the water.

In the air... A lone Common Scoter was nice but not a patch [ho ho] on 8 Golden Plover! Not at all easy here, I can tell you. The slick stole the show [and sold it back before anyone had noticed it was gone, too] though, and the stunning adult 'eat my hood biatches' Med Gull was only icing to the 7 Little Gulls!!!! 6 adults in various stages of moult, plus one 1w. Two of the adults came in and lingered on the slick for 20 minutes or so - just amazing to watch them. :D


Finally some numbers. In 2.5 hours [the last half hour being pretty dead, it must be said];

Auks [~50:50] S257  N3
Kittiwakes S183
Gannets S14
Fulmars S32



EDIT: Whoops, forgot the divers!

Red-throated Diver  6
Great Northern Diver  2
Diver sp. [probable B-T]  1

EXTRA EDIT:
Having been given a phone with an actual camera for crimbo [by Sister the YoungerYounger, vexed by my old one always cutting out on her] I have on occasion tried using it. Lining it up to optics is almost impossible, but that hasn't stopped me; after all, no developing issues! :) Said camera is about 50 pixels, but here is something I took on this Watch. It's a gull holding position over the slick, but which gull?