Should've Gone To Prawle - Oh Wait, I Did

I've been doing some research.


What sparked this? Well, the latest Devon Birds came through the door and it included a phrase which got me wondering;
"When the moon's away, the shearwaters play"

Having just seen a whole bunch, with variety and quality if not huge quantity, under [so to speak] a full moon - indeed a supermoon - I wondered a great deal.


So, instead of going out for a yomp on't Moor as I had planned, I spent far too much of Saturday digging through my records. I recorded which watches I had seen something special on, and also those with large numbers of Balearics [not always the same]. For each I noted the location, phase of the moon [to nearest phase], and the weather type. I eliminated out of Devon records for consistency* and then it was a case of looking for correlations..

What did I find?


Of large shearwater days; roughly half were 'with' a full or near it moon, and half 'without' [more or less], but looking at it another way, the full and new moon watches outnumbered the half moon watches by 4 to 1, and of the half moon watches, 3 to 1 were on waxing moons.

Of 18 big Balearic days; 6 were full, 6 were new, 5 were waxing half, and 1 waning half.

Counting everything, including notable events for storm petrels and skuas, there is an overall 3 to 1 ratio in favour of new/full to halves.


I rather suspect that the true harbinger of birds is not so much the moon itself but the tides. This is not proper science by any means - you'd at least need proper tide height data - but there does appear to be a pattern.


The logic behind a lack of moonlight - darker nights encourage birds inshore - is certainly true, breeding site analysis has shown it. It also seems to me that there is another piece of logic at play; as birds may have an opportunity via darker nights to come inshore, but they also need a reason to do so. Stronger tides mean a more disturbed water column, especially inshore, meaning more available food for both birds and their prey. As The Boss says, 'The birds have to be there'. Stronger tides would encourage birds to come a bit closer, sustained winds do the same, as does a long warm spell, or a surge in numbers of a food source. Then you just need a weather event.


Nice theory? Something to think about, anyway.



Anyway, I have a new saying: "When the tides are high, the birds are nigh"




So, yesterday.

Waning half moon, but after some very high tides and with sustained westerlies and a weak cold front coming to say 'hi'.

What to do?


Yup, I went to Prawle. I've not been there this year, which is scandalous, so I had to rectify the situation, plus I figured with the wind that way, any showers would be dried out before they got to the Nose, but Prawle might catch some.


I took my time getting there, as it was an on spec watch [they usually are at Prawle] and only started at ten. Ah, what could have been...


My first bird was a Balearic. There were 13 in hour one and 30 in total for the 6.5 hours I gave it. 30 Balearics!!!! Manxies? 225 in hour one, 954 in all [plus 52 east, all in the PM].

3 Bonxies, 4+ Harbour Porpoises, 473 Gannets, 0 Kittiwakes [!!] and 33... yes, 33 Med Gulls..

If that wasn't enough, a couple of juvenile Hobbies came past at high speed - straight down and yarking their heads off! I've never seen juvie Hobbies playing like that before, so it was a treat, albeit a brief one..!


And all this without getting rained on once. While listening to England mangle India.


Twas a nice day.



I even managed to find amusement in the sheer cowering incompetence of the grockles trying to navigate the lanes. Seriously, one fellow - whom I had seen coming and pulled into a passing place {that would fit a tractor} for - came up and instead of passing by, stopped in the next passing point up from the one I was in! It took several seconds to compose myself sufficiently to check my mirrors to see if there was a combine harvester that had magically appeared behind me - there wasn't - and then move off. I did try not to laugh too obviously, really I did....




[[*Though the ratios stand up, as it happens]]