Been a wild day of persistently strong winds, gusting frequently to force 9, and lots of squally showers, often torrential, and including some hail.
Basically, if I'd been at home I probably would barely have set foot outdoors! Even here, effort has been lower than usual, and most birding has been done from the car. The exception was this morning, when I had a most unlikely seawatch; more of that shortly.
Early on I was basically restricting my birding to watching the Bay of Brough through the kitchen window. Good numbers of Shags were flying in and feeding in a tight group in the inshore waters.
Clearly a lot of fish had been pushed into the bay by the wind and swell, confirmed by plenty of Gannets diving out there too. At one point a Great Skua menacingly monitored the feeding, but this was soon driven off by large gulls. A single Kittiwake and a female-type Red-breasted Merganser also added themselves to the garden list, and a ringtail Hen Harrier did a couple of fly-pasts over the land.
After a while it struck me that perhaps I should be heading to somewhere where seabirds may have been forced to shelter from the winds, hopeful of maybe a petrel or phalarope. A quick glance at the map suggested Kettletoft Harbour would be the place: somewhere with shelter of sorts from the elements, and overlooking the bay there. But certainly not somewhere that could be classified as ideal for a seawatch.
Whilst there was nothing untoward there when I arrived, it was nice to see close Red-throated Diver, Black Guillemot and Guillemot.
There was a steady stream of Gannets heading into the westerly wind through Sanday Sound, which divides Sanday and Stronsay to the south, many of them really close.
Also reasonable numbers of Kittiwakes.
Then at one point I picked out a couple of Arctic Skuas, a pale adult and dark juvenile, not too far out and I reached for the camera in the hope of some sort of record shot. But I was just about to take aim when another juvenile skua came gliding in and flew directly over my head no more than five metres up. I had a hunch what it was, based on jizz, but aimed the camera near it and took a lot of pictures of sky as it wheeled about nearby, close enough that I even heard it call. It then flew off a bit further and sat on the sea for a while, but further photo attempts were thwarted by the fact that I was facing into a howling gale, and it soon departed.
Fortunately a few of the early shots had been accurate, if not entirely in focus, but good enough to confirm my original suspicions that it was a Pomarine Skua.
Also of interest during the watch was a couple of flocks of Barnacle Geese, of 32 and 12 birds. The first flock headed out over the sea, so low they were dodging between the big waves. I'm hoping they all made it safely to the SW peninsula of the island and then had the good sense to rest up!
Also in the harbour were 3 Sandwich Terns and 11 Eider, and then after about an hour and a half I headed home to warm up!
After an extended lunch break I headed out in the car for more searching through wader flocks in fields in search of that elusive AGP or buff-breast. No joy unfortunately, although I did find the Greenshank at Thorness again.
And a Ruff near Oyce.
Searching gardens up that way was as pointless as expected, although a single redpoll sp flew over Thorwald calling.
Popped in to Riverside Cottage on the way through to Lady, and found the Spotted Flycatcher still present in the same spot.
Gardens in Lady produced just a single Robin, a male Hen Harrier was seen briefly out towards Cata Sands and then a check of the Cleat Road/North Hill area turned up a very flighty Wheatear.
Back at the hostel early further scanning of the bay revealed a first-year Arctic Tern, although the fact that it was often resting on the choppy sea may not bode well for it.
And that was about it for what was a very exhausting day, despite not having actually done that much.
No comments:
Post a Comment