After the disappointing sunshine, Sunday saw a return to propriety, with a proper attack of August Bank Holiday wind and rain. Needless to say, all and sundry hit various parts of the coast to enjoy whatever was unlucky enough to be in the area, and some of said masses even got home not entirely soggy.
Amazingly, this included me, as I withstood the forecast deluge via the cunning method of it not turning up..!
The wind was also far more SE, verging ESE at times, for most of the watch, only getting SSW after midday, but the horizontal drizzle was near constant, with only the odd clear-ish patch, and actual proper rain only hit a couple of times.
With the wind making the Steps a no-go, and with the prospect of holiday weekend levels of anglers ambling about making the Trad Spot even less pleasant a prospect, I turned to Plan T. The Tower's exposure was one of the few rays of light in the TCCT's plan to bury the Nose in Brambles and Bracken, before it all erodes into the sea. There is, after all, nothing like a nice bit of solid vertical scenery to give a little shelter to the seawatcher. :)
The newly-sprouted vegetation had other ideas, however, with not only a sea of aforementioned Bracken, but also large and pointy Thistles [assorted] and Herb Robert filling the area I'd used last year. Hmm.
The wind came to my aid - surprise move - as it had battered a couple of big patches of the stuff further along the Wall, by the little tree. With the eastern edge of the flattened area forming a living wall, stretching from said tree, it was a natural sheltered area, perfect for seawatching! Ok, I'd have to stay standing, but that was well worth being as out of the wind as I was.
View over the biowall;
Lead and Ore Stones
As you can see, my position was set a bit back from the sea - not a lot of use for monitoring the slick [but then there wasn't one, due to lack of rain] - but at least I was presented with a broad field of view! I gave it 7.5 hours - being drawn out by the odd tempting bird passing just as I was thinking of going.
What did I see? Not vast numbers. Very low numbers of shearwaters - which I again blame on the very iffy vis, letting them sneak by unseen even on the Manx line for much of the day - with a tiny 6 Manx and 3 Balearics! Shock! A very nice Sooty came through at 0822, though.
Skuas did better, with 7 Bonxies, including an adult with orangey juvenile in tow, though only one was deemed worthy of focus by my camera - which outdid itself in petulance, thanks to all the fine water droplets in the air - and that not well;
Itsa Thingy
A nice dark morph Pom passed at 0937 [perhaps the Portland bird got a lift in a certain blue box?? ;)] and two Arctics, a dark morph at 1040
Dark.
Very dark
Classic pose
Showing the thinner arm compared to Pomarine, giving the impression the arm is longer than the hand. Inverse true with Poms, and handy with side on birds at range.
Later on, at 1243 a light morph almost escaped the camera
Not my greatest picture
Terns were pretty good, with two Black, at least 5 Arctic, 56 Common, more than three Sarnie [heard-only, as they were too close in to see] and a handful of Commics.
414 Gannets, 121 Kittiwakes - with 7 juveniles - and 36 Fulmar, plus a lone juv Med, 2 LBB [adult and juv] and a flock of 24 Common Scoter. The Velvet evaded me - curses! - perhaps by coming through at point-blank*.
Time for some horrible gulls!
Looking for trouble
Moulting primaries?!?
You're not a juv!
Its always a Herring Gull
No, really
"You sure about that?"
Ok, it's almost always a Herring Gull!
See?
Unless it's a Kittiwake
Yes, awful, but
look at that tail and wing pose!
Still looking for trouble
Responsible adult?
Itsa tern??
[Bloomin' big tern..]
Now, it being the holiday, you might expect hordes of people on the water. But weather. But holiday. But weather...
The ToJ were heard but not seen, and only one pleasure craft dared to round the Cape of Good Nose;
They came from the North
'Deadliest Catch Experience'
It's a niche market
Coming up, Weekend part 1 where Patch reporting is enlivened by Compare The
Be Seeing You...
[[*In the past I've a couple of times seen Velvets come past well inside the Lead Stone, something I've never known Commons to do.]]
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