With all the sexy weather past or still to come, it was just wind and showers and sunshine and... Well.
Anyways, I've been battering sheltered parts of the Patch and parties of singing Firecrests aside*, I've not found much.
Note a certain place I check every winter, beacuse one day, One Glorious Day.. [The Artist will turn up and find a Wallcreeper there...]
Walls Hill from
Bishop's Walk
Another winter check spot is the Blackball roost. On Monday it held ~450 Kittiwake, and as of 1630, 750+ large gulls. No grebes, divers, let alone seaducks in sight, though.
Spot the gulls...
[When If it gets cold, this may change]
A nice seaduck in the form of a Long-tailed Duck turned up on the unlikely spot of Young's Boating Pond at Goodrington. For about 30 seconds a day, anyway.
Other times 'somewhere in the Bay'. [Uh oh...]
I got up early [Nights] and fought my way through rush hour and roadworks horrors to have a go..
Getting rained on
I found a nice raft of 8 GNDs and a lone Razorbill. Not even a scoter, though...
Friday meant freedom.
Also brain fog.
But I got there in the end and found - as expected - a LTD-free boating pond.
I yomped over to the wonderfully-named Sugar Loaf Hill, home of some very exposed benches and a half-decent view of the middle of the Bay [again]
Slight improvement
to viewing conditions
Things turned up on the way, as a Snow Bunting which had also been lurking in the area turned out to be using the railway cutting [that ends in that pic] to hide in. I got one very quick look of it diving out of sight, but that's more than anyone since Wednesday.!
Scanning for duckies got me one.
Hold on, that's no scoter...
Adult female Eider!
Really, it is!
Honest.
Just before the 11th Hour, I refound 4 Common Scoter - which had flown south from their origin off the Pier - who now had some more friends with them.
And one of them was a bit pale and a lot dinky...
Second from the right
[and straight on 'til mo-]
Yes, a 1cy female Long-tailed Duck.
You can see smaller and paler than the scoter.
[Or look at Steph Murphy's twitter if you want to see what she realllllly looks like. Birds like Steph. ]
The ducks split into 2 groups of 5: 4 males and a female, and 4 females and a LTD;
Second from right,
rear group
After The Hour [and resolving to hunt down the 'piper' who didn't know what Silence is....] I spent a merry half hour watching the ducks diving and bringing up.. Well, couldn't quite make out what, but they often needed dealing with on the surface for a fair while.
Also in sight a single GND, single Razorbill, and 2 Guillemots. Plus a fair few Gannets fishing quite well into the Bay and accompanied by a scattering of Kittiwakes.
On my way back no further sign of the SnoB, but on Goodrington Beach, this beauty;
Now THAT's a Pied Crow!!
Ahem.
It would be lovely to be able to report the LTD flew in to the pond as I passed by... But no.
11 Tufties and not even a Med Gull on it.
But that's birding.
Sometimes you have to grind 'em out.
And watching a Long-tailed Duck foraging alongside Common Scoter wasn't bad at all. [Big Scopes are quite useful things, dontcha know]
:D
Be Seeing You...
[[* Usual caveat.]]
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