The Sweet Sea

'What's this??' You may well cry. 'The sea isn't sweet, it's salty as can be..'

But seawatching certainly is sweet. [Ok, it can be, when your brolly hasn't blown away, you're nice and warm and dry, you've not missed insanely good birds, you-.... you get the idea.]

A week into Reduced Restrictions [so that's last Friday], finalllllly there was something like weather. Now, mid May isn't exactly late August, but needs must and all that.



So I hit the Nose straight from work [previous day's luke warm coffee and all.. There's commitment!] and had two hours of fun and frolics. Also Puffins.



Especially Puffins.

:D

I only had 8, but see above re: Work. And one, well;

Itsa Puffin!

Ok, not a close Puffin, true

Classic seawatching view;

low, fast and very dark!

Also Manxies, a lone Sarnie [are there no other sea terns??], a s/pl Sanderling [too busy flying to see if it was a SanderBling], a steady passage of Gannets [about one a minute], Kitts, Fulmars [probably], a whole shedload of mostly local auks, and a s/pl GND.. Going south?!?

Don't believe me [for shame]??

Lookit;

GND

[feet on the left]

Bit closer to,

s/pl visible

Yup, going the wrong way.

Also of note...

"Report"

"Auks, sah, 'undreds of 'em!"

Mostly Guillemots, naturally.

More blobs Guillemots

But not all,

Razorbills

Also in the cave thing

Trouble the Herring Gull

[She flies like a cartoon bat, in case you were wondering!]

The World's Hardest Oystercatchers

are at it again

Trace fossil

The edge of the coin is flush with the broken edge of the stratum [it's a bit hard to make out]. This was a round section burrow, which was filled with the same material it was made into, implying it wasn't open when the overlying sediment [you can see it behind the coin] was emplaced. This is also indicated by the rather wobbly edge to it [an open hole would need more certain stable walls]. At the time I thought it was a worm tunnel, but that discolouration, and the shape of it, makes me wonder if it isn't the home of a burrowing bivalve [think a dinky Razorshell or something], which may still be in there?

Bivalve and brachiopod assemblage

[slightly hidden by grass etc.]

A little hard to make out, maybe? A cluster of shells, probably dumped in a slide, certainly not in life positions. Directly above the date on the coin is a section right through a nice mud-sitting type bivalve [something like G. arcuata] - that pale grey patch - with the rounded underside [that sat in the mud like a boat's hull in water] lower left, and flatter 'lid' valve upper right [it hasn't come out well, but if you look closely you can see the grey bit is edged by shell].


Now after those grey rocks, here's some colour;

Greater Knapweed!

Just opening and looking quite Common

;)

The pale grey-green scales with black chevrons are diagnostic of Greater - Common shows a similar shape to the flower head but had seemingly all dark scales [yes, I know not the proper term], which have more thumbnail-shaped black markings.

Hedge Mustard

Prickly Sowthistle

Far better than expected, considering the date, the fact the weather had already passed through, and that I couldn't get there early enough.

Of note, my go at a Devon yearlist hit 200 with Puffin. I was quite pleased to realise that* - yes, it's daft, but I like big number birds to be funky ones, and say Common Tern just wouldn't be quite the same.  [I've still only seen 2 tern spp. this year.....] [[Sorry CT fans, in my defence I'd be happier with Arctic, let alone Roseate :) ]]


Ok, shutting up now.


Be Seeing You...


[[* I use pencil and paper for my lists and count by clicker.. What?? I'm still Backward! ]]