Weather: F4 N, overcast, persistent rain, poor vis at times (am). F1 later
F3, excellent vis, warm & light showers sunny (pm).
Observer(s): Niall
T. Keogh, Noel Keogh, Joe Adamson, Kris de Rouck & Wout de Rouck.
Sooty Shearwater: 41
Manx Shearwater: 240
Fulmar: 220+
Storm Petrel: 1
Leach’s Petrel: 3
Common Scoter: 1 female
Red-throated Diver: 2 summer plumage
Great Skua (Bonxie): 14
Arctic Skua: 3
Sabine’s Gull: 1 juv.
Kittiwake: 50 incl. 12 juvs.
Arctic Tern: 2
Sandwich Tern: 34
Guillemot/Razorbill: 415
Puffin: 1
Chough: 2
American
Golden Plover: 1 adult/2nd cal-year+ type
Buff-breasted Sandpiper: 1 flyover
Bottlenose Dolphin: c.12 heading West in the evening.
American Mink: 3 between the car
park & the watch point at 06:40am.
Northerly winds & persistent rain made for a miserable mornings
seawatch. The lack of birds didn’t help either! Noel rather wisely decided
to go look for waders down near The Bridges pool and he was duly rewarded by
finding a moulting adult/2nd cal-year+ type American Golden Plover on the intertidal rocks at 08:35am! Those of
us still seawatching in ‘The Hollow’ quickly abandoned our post and made it
down in time to watch this bird for a few minutes before it took off at
08:48am, calling loudly and heading in a South Easterly direction. We decided
then to go check out the local wader sites to see if anything else had come in.
Before we could even get back to the car, a Buff-breasted Sandpiper flew over us at 09:05am, heading East! The
same bird as last week or fresh in?
Continuing with the Nearctic theme, three Mink were seen running across the path by the blowhole early this morning as we made our way onto the headland. A less welcome component of the American fauna in this part of the world.
 |
| American Golden Plover © Niall Keogh |
No comments:
Post a Comment