Stuff The Twitch, I'm Seawatching.

Is what I said yesterday afternoon, as at long long last some half decent weather co-incided with daylight [just about..].


Perhaps I should have been more ruthless about my yearlisting. [Hm, there's a post in this; I'll get back to it]. But I wasn't, so no chasing about the Warren after another sodding Pec Sand. Hell, I have an awful record with them anyway..



So, I got down to the Nose and stayed until it got dark. I even caught a nice little squall, and the ESE to SE with semi-continuous showers which kicked in about 5 [the wind was there before but not the rain] produced some birds.

Probably the star performer was an adult intermediate morph Arctic Skua, which detoured on its way South to have a look at the gulls clustered around the Toes. The fishers had all left with the rain [wimps] and the gulls had moved in, only to be most flustered by the incoming skua! Which was quite entertaining to watch; Geebs alarming at an Arctic half their size... :)

Said skua was in inner primary moult [!] so perhaps they saw more in the wings than an Arctic would have and thought it was a bigger sp.?? Whatever, the skua came right in and then decided there was nothing of interest, so passed inside the Lead Stone at maybe 100m, well up, flying casually, and crippling through the scope!

Only one other Arctic went south, the other 5 [plus a distant probable] went north. It seems there was a lot of activity well out in Lyme Bay, as there was a lot of split movements. The other 3 skuas were 2 S and 1 distant lingering, the Balearics were split 6S 7N [and probably different birds, judging by plumage], the Gannets were 86/24 [that includes a late surge south after the squall]. The only large numbers in one direction were Kittiwakes, with all 65 heading South [about 60% were immature birds].

Only 3 auks [one of each], one party of 19 C Scoter, 2 lone Manxies and 2 Fulmars also went south, with 4 Sarnies lingering early on and a surprise in the form of an immature Grey Heron heading out SE! Brave bird, is all I can say.


It was good to be watching the sea properly again, just a shame the weather's been so inclement..


Oh well.


In the morning [after I'd finished cursing the weathermuppets] I'd wandered over to Exminster, where a Grey Phalarope was showing brilliantly. It even had a fly around. Lovely little birds.. :D

The light wasn't always great..

..Unlike the bird.

1w Grey Phal

Saturday was spent doing stuff like scrubbing balconies [a rather quixotic task] and cleaning feeders, mostly, but I got to the Nose first thing for a whole lot of Blackcaps and some impromptu seawatching. After the night's front, a Balearic [going north], 2 Poms, and an Arctic in 15 minutes weren't bad, but it never looked like being good enough to tool up properly. I was going to head to Slapton in the afternoon, but life got in the way, so what can you do?



Finally, from Saturday morning, here's a lovely photo of part of the Top Dell;

There is a bird hiding in here.

Can you see it?

Right then, back to work. Happy happy joy joy...