Grinding In The Gunge.

Right. On with it, getting.

Saturday. Easterlies or thereabouts; brisk to strong ones. Also gunge, rain, and so on.

What to do when it's blasting onto the Nose? Well, try Site B. 

At Berry Head, when it's too horrid for the seawatching point, you goto Shoalstone, likewise there's a handy Victorian shelter not too far from the Nose. Might have mentioned it before.

Sort of sheltered from the weather, sort of some birds in the Bay. Eventually, a small group of Kittiwake turned up and started foraging, but with visibility barely reaching the nearest cruise ship, I admit I had hoped for more than Herrings, GBBs, Shags, and Corms. But patience - verging onto persistence - when combined with a big scope in decent weather usually gives something, and I was fortunately looking through said scope, working sections of heaving sea in the vain hope of anything on it, when something brown whirred past.

Looks like a duck, a chunky duck. No speculum, no whiter belly, nice milk chocolate brown, hint of barring?.. Oh that'd be a female Eider then! :D  She went into the Bay and I did the dance of joy. 

That was it, though. Not even a slightly suspicious-looking gull to interrogate. I'll take it! :)

The next day I was out sharp and heading once again with big scope in rucksack [lugging it around is very good exercise] and no flask [Bah. Bah I say] on a nice walk. I arrived at the Nose, 4 Song Thrushes up, at the same time as The Teacher, so we ambled about the place at a proper distance from one another. Two sets and so on.

The LTD was still present, and the Glonk again showed off like the utter tart it is..

Glonks laugh at howling easterlies.

Much better though, in terms of site rarity [that's on site, not seawatching flypasts], was this little lurker amongst the rocks below The Steps;

Sandpiper Purple!

Common and BH Gulls were messing about in moderate numbers, but not a diver to be seen, perhaps a little less surprisingly, despite careful scanning through the drizzle and spray.

Stronger rain arrived but I was on a mission, and so headed to Meadfoot, where I met up again with The Teacher, and we looked out from the shelter across a slightly more visible Bay than the day before. At least until it tipped across [not really down...]. As I said to him, 'When you can't see Berry Head [before the rain hit, I'd been trying to work out if anybody in Shoalstone shelter was a birder!], it's time to look at the sea!'. We looked. Nada.

He'd had enough [having a larger quotient of Sanity than me], but I still had Unfinished Business and yomped on through the rain to the Harbour.

 

 

No Purple Sands on Haldon Pier, as expected in a nasty easterly [but you have to check to prove it.] with a Rockit alone. The young Razorbill was again in the Outer Harbour, but only Shags and Cormorants in the sheltered north end of the Bay- Wait, what's that right tight in off Torre Abbey?? Looks grebey....  Dammit, round to Princess Pier.

Ah ha [after about ten minutes of scanning]; Two GC Grebes. And... ah, that RTD The Artist photo'd so wonderfully the other day! While I'd scuttled around, they'd moved towards Corbyn's Head, the diver was a little further towards Livermead.

2 GC Grebes, lower centre right

RTD [white throat only part really visible], left of centre

Mua-ha-ha-ha-ha...

What an awful shot. Hand-held in howling rain, autofocus would only lock onto the wall behind them....

Speaking of, I also found a couple of Purple Sands in a very odd place;

Spot the Purple Sands!

This is the Victorian reclaimation wall near the Princess Theatre, right by Torre Abbey beach. I guess on this coast, any shelter with nearby weed is worth it.

 

 

I had checked everywhere I could reasonably get to in search of diving things and found three. I figured that would do and headed homewards. I wasn't that soggy, though continuing surprised at just how many people were out in such weathers. [I had hopes, hopes of at least a little solitude; vain foolish hopes.....]

Ahem.

I am still trying to see - and ideally photo! - a Blackstart. I got very close up in the Lincombes, actually heard calls, but not a sniff of a sighting [big private gardens, steep slopes, plurality of rooftops to hide on, the works...]. I'm not giving up.

I have more to say, and better pictures to upload, [the graininess tells of how fun the weather was] but they await my next post.

Be Seeing You...