Two Days At The Nose, Pt 1

And so, we finally get to look back to a weekend dominated by wonderful glorious seawatching, oh yes indeed.

After seemingly years of blazing sun and only diminishing numbers of parched butterflies to look at, it was a joy to get window-slamming winds and even.. rain. Ah, rain, that strange delight.

Ahem.

As you've had to wait so long, here's something a little better than my usual brief natter and plethora of horrid gull shots.



I got there early both days - despite the forecasts - because, well because! Not able to start from first light though, due to firstly getting in from work, and then having to shift position and be messed about by the wind, which had far more east than forecast, but still; starting at 6 wasn't too bad.


They were very different days, with Saturday a watch of comfort - no worries about brolly-wrangling, optics sprayed-up, attacks of cramp, or anything - while Sunday had all of that with interest, but also much better weather, with no glare or heat haze, and birds at less than 1.5km!!

A picture paints a thousand words, so perhaps I should just put some up;

Saturday

Blue skies, blowing wind, big showers - at 'Gwarra this would be ideal!

Sunday

Visibility under a kilometre, gunk and sideways rain, a lovely slick from The South West's Biggest Chumming Machine.. What more can you want? :)

A fair swell picked up, too

Now, you'd expect a few things to be coming from seeing those. Saturday would be a few bits and pieces passing at anything from long to 'oh come on how can you see that?!?' range, though with always the chance of a few close shears - especially Balearics, who sometimes care nothing for passing very close - or skuas. Sunday would see an absolute avalanche of birds, with holding your scope straight and your clickers catching fire the only limits on your counts.

Not quite.

Let's look at those standard* shearwaters to demonstrate;

Manx:
Saturday, 106 S, 34 N, plus a large number loitering at 3km+ to ESE in a feeding frenzy
Sunday: 43 S

Balearic:
Saturday, 2 S
Sunday, 22 S         


26.5/hr to 5.4/hr, and 0.5/hr to 2.8/hr

Comparing to sites nearby, you'd be forgiven for going 'Huh?!?'
This is a function primarily of visibility; those Manxies were passing by on Sunday, [along with a lot else I do not doubt] just along their usual line and thus masked by the gunk. A couple of times before the rain passed, when things briefly cleared, all manner of birds were revealed, then hidden again as the weather closed in; you can see it in the bursts of times down there. This wasn't just an issue at the Nose, every site along the coast had hits and misses.

There was a steady if light passage of Gannets, with Fulmars and the odd Manxie, plus an assortment of this n' that at the slick. Once the main rain cleared, things took off a lot more, though the gaps in the rain had shown what was out there.
Passing birds were not easy to get on, let alone shoot - my camera does not like low light and it hates rain - with inconvenient gusts adding to the rain and swell. Even after the rain passed and it cleared a bit, it still sulked at the fine spray in the air, which is why the skua shots [and these are of close birds who homed onto the slick then moved out to the Manx line to pass] aren't exactly awesome. They're good for the conditions, trust me!

Oh yeah, skua shots.. I've burbled a bit so you deserve some.

Skua 1

[mid scrag!]

Spot Skua 2...

[the gulls didn't in time]

Skua 3

Skua 4

[there's always one show-off!]

Now, compare the next two;

Skua 4

[Small upperwing flash]

Skua 5

[Big flash]

Shot within seconds of each other; I thought I was still aiming at Skua 4....! That swell was quite effective. Plus of course, there's the 'tog effect'; concentrating on photographing this means missing that [and that and that and...].

Skua 1 was a miss as well; taken aiming at a Bonxie going after the outer gull mob.You can see it's an Arctic, though**. So, the visibility and the swell [which could easily hide large gulls] made seeing things fun.

Not all dark morph action, though, as a couple of lights went by, with one [more a light/intermed, really] being a little too incautious;

Skua 7

That's more like it!

Look familiar? Yes, you've seen this bird before, two posts back.


I promised numbers and I shall deliver, though I'll group the two rather than repeat myself; Saturday in italics, where appropriate. All south (/ north) unless stated.


Gannet; 265 / Not counted
Fulmar; 13 / Not counted
Kittiwake; 51 / 106
Manx Shearwater; 106/34 / 43
Balearic Shearwater; 2 / 22
Sooty Shearwater; 3 [2 @0627, 0824] / 5 [1018, 1033, 1054, 2@ 1056]
Great Shearwater; 1 [0632] / 3 [1052, 1115, 1225]
Cory's Shearwater; 1 [1127]
Large Shearwater sp.; 1 [0743]
Bonxie; 1 [0612] / 2 [0841-50, 0942]
Pomarine Skua; 2 [0624 light, 0627 dark]
Arctic Skua; 3 [0612, 0637-39, 0750] / 7 [0842, 0843, 0847, 2@ 0848, 1050, 1333]
Skua sp.; 1 [0855]
Guillemot; 1N
Puffin; 1 [0955]
Sandwich Tern; 7 / 3
Mediterranean Gull; 9 / 33+
Lesser Black-backed Gull; 1
Yellow-legged Gull; 1 / 1+ [all loitering]
Curlew; 3
Whimbrel; 1
Dunlin; 3
Wader sp.; 1
Swift; 2
Common Scoter; 5

Notes:
Greats; Saturday's was typical 'way out there' but being utterly classic Great. Sunday's first was out in a gap, but the later two were actually close - for big shears - and the 1115 bird in particular showed its belly repeatedly. I was so close to smashing my camera in frustration...
Cory's; Not as obliging as the Great right before it, but clearly a Cory's, just outside the Manx line.
Large shear sp.; More in the gunk, very white underneath, but not 'right' for Cory's, it felt more like Great. Juv Greats can lose the belly patch, but not so early in the year, so I am stumped by this one.
Bonxie; that long time was the bird that came into the slick gulls in typical bowling ball style [STRIKE!], and eventually passed at 0850
Poms; well out, near feeding concentrations, the first one scragged a Herring Gull, the second picked on Kittiwakes
Skua sp.; small and bouncy, very dark, no visible rump/underwing barring, seemed to only have shaft streaks.. Yikes? But went off into the gap in the gunk it came out of without giving me enough to rule out a very evil Arctic. Drat and so on.
Puffin; Adult, inside the Ore Stone, very nice too!
Storm Petrels; Conspicuous by their absence! What the actual?? I was keeping a careful eye on the outer fringes of the slick for them, as well. There were birds a plenty to the N, and they reached past to the S, so... Maybe they took one look at all the gulls? Maybe the wind wasn't offshore enough to put the lovely smell of all that chum their way? Maybe they did come in but the large number of big gulls well out in the slick fringes - not usual behaviour - saw them first? Birds happen. Sometimes they don't.


Resident Oystercatchers present both days, along with other Usual Suspects

"Chirp chirp, spare a chip?"

"Did someone mention chips?"

That/those Rockit/s bold as ever;

"Humans? Bah, they're nothing"

Just a taste of the Slickers..

Er, what's the difference between juvenile

Meds and BHGs again?

Gull A

Gull B

Gull C

[apologies for not matching the pose]

Hardly a fair test, I admit. B was the best I could do [only one juv and it wouldn't behave].

Outer reaches of the chum and attendees

Nice upperwing,

but not sharp enough to crop further

Fulmar at ~600m

[again, don't bother making this bigger]

In case you were wondering how I could get gulls and skuas but no shears; they were all out beyond yon Fulmar, and see how that came out... Though at least you get the nice post-breeding moult so you can age it.



Part two, with lots of horrible pictures, will be along dreckly.


As will more recent activities.



Sooner than last time, I sincerely hope, I shall


Be Seeing You...


[[*For here, that is. I am aware of the whole 'one of the rarest birds in the world' thing and appreciate the irony that they're about pretty much year-round...]]
[[**Lack of big flash on upperwing. And yes, easy with a viewfinder like mine - you have to pick the right blur.]]