The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly. Pt. 2

Prawle in late July between frontal systems, sun and some showers [all missed] turning to increasingly heavy overcast with mounting WSW to SSW wind. Packs of bleeeeping jetscum around mid day and early afternoon, but otherwise mostly sail traffic inshore.

Some prospects?

Looking east from Prawle Point;

Peartree Point beyond the raised beach

In Pt. 1 I shamelessly gloated told about the cetaceans that I saw breaching, hunting, and well, trying to come by.

Now to all the other stuff.

Ruby-tailed Wasp

[C. ignita?]

Wow...

Ah, yes. The reason for the brilliant photos.

And the rest was too horrible to describe....

Common Blue

Yes, insects, too.

What else?

I'll try not to rant about the jetscum any more.

And...?
Well, we'll get to the other 'others' [some nice pretty flowers to finish with and sootht he eyes from the coming seawatching shots].

Ok, no more prevarication. Time for some hard numbers?

8 Hours watching. All spp. W [or W/E] unless stated.

Balearic Shearwater  13  (all between 1105 and 1819)
Sooty Shearwater  1 (1427)
Manx Shearwater  636 / 108
Shearwater sp.*  1  (1402)
Shearwater sp.***  1  (1057)
Arctic Tern  1
Common Tern  7
Puffin  4  (2@ 1734 + 1740)
Guillemot  7 / 3
Razorbill  1 / 1
Gannet  272 / 57
Kittiwake 2E
Fulmar 2
Mediterranean Gull  6
Lesser Black-backed Gull  4
Greater Black-backed Gull  10

Hourlies: Manx;   49-49-93-48-43-67-68-219
                Gannet; 32-9-24-35-32-22-40-74

Passage of Manx weather-controlled; more clouds and closer showers = more birds. [Visibility vs sun may also be a factor, of course]

The Balearics included a couple of really nice pale ones, a proper Sooty-a-like, and an all-dark one of Dark Chocolate Beauty.

Said all-dark Balearic.

Note full belly [and short wings, not that you can see well] before anyone says 'it's a Sooty'  :)

Of interest, a couple of birders were there the day before and also got 13 Balearics in 8 hours! Spooky.
One Manx was in obvious wing moult, and several Manxies showed markings on the underwing.

Spot the Manxie

Not the best of pictures, but you can sort-of see the dark marking on the underwing. Ish.

Better picture of whiter Manxie

Balearic

Better Balearic with 3 Manxies

Mediterranean Gull

[moulting adult]

Med Gulls

[3cy and juvenile]

Let's see something in better focus;

Moulting Rock Pipit

The wind picked up a bit..!

Early yacht

Later yacht

As promised, assorted flowering type things;

Navelwort

Betony

Wild Thyme

Sea Campion

Spring Squill

Sheep's-bit

Rock Sea-spurrey

English Stonecrop

Field Bindweed

Garden escape?

Common Ragwort

Not vast numbers, but some nice birds [they weren't all waaaaay out, especially later on] and definitely quality [which always beats quantity if you ask me].
It was all typical summer Prawle, with drifts of flowers amongst ancient twisted rocks, and winderful wildlife in the gaps between people.

Finally, I had to laugh [and go looking for a shrubbery, quicktime!]

The yacht that says "Ni!"

;D



Be Seeing You...






[[*It is probably for the best not to go into details. Suffice to say it was not a large one.**]]
[[** If you are really interested, let me know in a comment]]
[[*** Ditto the above...]]