There is a time early in the year when I look at the little readout thing at work and realise just how much holiday I haven't taken. So, I start picking random days and hope that - looking from well in advance - when the time comes, there'll be good weather / birds / both!
Thus it was that with mixed feelings I did not get up at
Aaaaargh o'clock on Monday morning [yay], but got up at a bit after that and toddled down to the Nose with Scope and Flask and Determined Air...
There was a front due - forecast to be quite shooty - and I was there before it, ready to get befores and afters.
Once again, though, the brain spoke with forked tongue, as it was far more drizzle than hard core bird-shifting rain bursts.. But there was some rain, though not hard, and visibility did tank a bit [though the Ore Stone was always clearly visible].
More importantly, a few birds passed!
"Got any sammiches??"
That orange blur is my leg, btw*. This little mugger came right up to me after I moved back to the Tower [before the front arrived I was by the Wall]; Steps Rockit close! I've known Robins to take food from an outstretched hand in freezing weather - if you stay very still - but this one was unbothered by me moving [like pulling out a camera] or indeed talking to it!
And yes, when it was lunch time, its boldness was rewarded with bits of both sammich and japflack. Lucky little blighter.
This Stonechat was also around.
He too noticed rations on offer, but couldn't bring himself to come closer than about 10m. Also, the Robin was typically..er, vigourous. Later, more of the Stonechat clan arrived and evened the violence up a bit.!
Ok, yes, sea birds!
With the air full of dizzle, my camera was once again being naughty. but I did get the odd thing;
Great Northern!
On the deck
Showing much closer in Hope Cove..
Three GNDs flew south, two more in Ore Stone channel, and one in Hope Cove. A BT and a RT also past south. 3 Common Scoter [were they the scoters I saw the evening before at Blackball??] also passed the same way.
Gannet rate was 34 an hour, Kittiwakes 24, Fulmar 5, and identified Razorbill 47! It really was an auk day, with many many hundreds if not thousands passing; though with the Ore Stone colony busy, getting proper accurate passage numbers was not going to happen. I settled on clicking Razorbills - when ID'd - as there are only maybe half a dozen pairs on the Ore [maybe even fewer at Berry??], so the majority should be passing.
Numbers waxed and waned quite a bit; hourly highs to lows of 92 to 24 for Razorbills, 83 to 19 for Gannets, 74 to 1 for Kittiwakes!
From the Wall
From the Tower
Decreased view, increased shelter; swings and indeed roundabouts.
The chummer kicked in - ground definitely saturated!
Not the biggest slick, though
Tripping the, er, 'light' fantastic..!
Gulls less than half a kilometre away..!
What a beast!
Adult graellsii LBB,
plus a BHG and Herrings
Common Gulls - showing variability
- with BHGs and a Herring
After the front passed [I think] and it started to clear up a bit, I was still utterly skua-less. This despite one or two Poms seemingly being seen every day from Berry Head! I had a theory, and decided to test it. To Meadfoot, in the name of science!!
Looking south across the Bay
Yes, sitting! In an actual shelter! With a roof! And walls!
Oh, the luxury.**
[Ahem]
Such luxury. And I had not been there 5 minutes when, yes you guessed it, a lovely adult light morph Pomarine Skua - with tail - came cruising by...
As I suspected; they've been hanging around the Bay, so no surprise I've had nothing from the Nose!
Also 2 more GNDs on the sea, a Curlew past, and two dark seaducks. These all-dark but headed away towards the Buoy farm - swimming! - so very hard to ID. Maybe 2cy male scoter??? Though the head shape seemed off, and no pale bits - including bill colour - to be seen. So oddness and 'seaduck spp., possibly scoter spp.'...
Divers distant, so here's a nice Cormorant
Let us end with some more interesting pictures from the Nose;
A lot of ex- Crabs scattered about
Moving much faster on the way out.!
[Turn your back for a second and everything's after your rations..]
"Did somebody say 'flapjack'??"
"Mine!"
That Robin...
:)
Be Seeing You...
[[*Your scarred eyes are not deceiving you; I am wearing fluorescent orange waterproof trollies. With reflective strips, too. Actual railway workers' ones. You may - if you've been following this blog for long enough - recall my seemingly never-ending quest to find good seawatching trollies. These aren't them {one major design omission}, but they are very tough, properly waterproof, and mean if I somehow do get in trouble, the coastguard / RNLI will have
no trouble finding me!]]
[[**Here in the southwest, we don't hold with all that wimpy seawatching hide nonsense; you use an umbrella and take it like a birder. {They're all wimps up north***, you know ;) } ]]
[[***Yes, norfolk and essex and all that are up north to us! :D ]]
