The Boat was Diesel, There Were Still a lot of Petrel

During my month in Ireland, I did go birding, yes.  But only twice.  About ten hours of birding for a month, not great I know.  To be fair, there seemed to be little around - Not that that's a viable excuse.  England on the other hand was seemingly brimming with migrants and rarities.  I mean there was even a group of three Wrynecks. Three of them. I'd be over the moon with just one!  Ireland of course, had none of this, well they steered clear of western Ireland at least.

 As such, the two birding forays of the trip were not twitches (If you can believe that), but nor were they regular birding days (if there is such a thing).  No you see, I finally entered the realm of the Pelagic.  A realm I'd been dreaming of for a long time.  I like boats. Oh, and of course, I like sea-birds too. 

My stomach is of the constitution that it, umm, doesn't handle car-journey's that well.  So you can, I'm sure, imagine my worry of spending five hours out at sea.  I won't paint that picture any clearer, for your comfort and mine.  I found however, fresh sea air, along with Storm Petrels flying just a few feet away make for a good remedy to keep sea-sickness at bay. Who'd have guessed...

Although I think following their nonsensical flight through the view-finder may have counteracted that a tad.  I added hundreds of shutter-counts to my camera, and this is practically all I got.  Fast little things!

 Aside from the Storm Petrel, the first Pelagic trip produced two Sooty Shearwater, a handful of Manx and this Bonxie.  It's amazing how much more impressive they are when they're not blobs on the horizon.

 

The second Pelagic involved one of those lovely 5am starts.  Eating muesli at 5am isn't that easy.  It also sadly involved a lot less Storm Petrel, only about twenty throughout five hours.  The Manx's however were out in much larger numbers.  A Sooty (I think), more than half-a-dozen Bonxie, oh and two of these beauties...

Long-tailed Skuas, yeah they're rather something!  One even had the audacity to chase a Bonxie, it must have been mad.  They showed amazingly, one flying right over the boat!

 We were also quite fortunate with Cetaceans, having up to five Minke Whale, and rather a lot of Common Dolphin - three of which swam right by the boat, if only for a few seconds, it was still a little mesmerising. 

Ignoring the daunting, ever-present feeling that the rocking of the boat would get the better of my afore described constitution, it was great fun. I like boats, I like sea-birds, so of course, I like Pelagics.

May the 'fourth' be With You?

Today something happened.  Something I didn't know to be possible.  Something I thought only to be true in dreams, crazy dreams.  Seawatching... without a ridiculously early start.  Not even relatively early, I didn't leave until after midday.  I know this may be hard to believe, but I assure you it's true!
 After midday you see, was when the south-easterlies were supposed to kick in.  An supposedly that's what's needed for a good seawatch.
 I got to Splash Point for 13:00, and immediately had three Little Terns pointed out!  Of course, by Little Terns I do mean black blobs with pointy wings - it may be a different time of day but this is still seawatching after all. Still, things were looking promising, fingers were crossed for a good movement of Pomarine's!
 A handful of Sandwich Tern, a 1cy Med Gull and some Common Scoter soon followed, but no Poms, and things soon slowed down to barely a steady passage of birds past.  Hmm, surely when the wind really started so would the bird movement.  Logic right?  And so, the wind picked up, but the passage didn't.  After four hours all that was seen of note was a moderately close Arctic Skua, a couple of specks that were Bonxie's and a few Red-throated Diver. A Porpoise too, but I don't think that had anything to do with the wind movements...
 At 17:00 I had to call it and head home.  Where were the Poms? I don't know. Five passed Dungeness, but apparently avoided Splash.  So although it was enjoyable -especially not having to put on an alarm for 4:50am- it was a pretty quiet seawatch.  Today, the force was not with me.

A Little Ob-Skua

It would appear I've become slightly hooked with seawatching.  This morning I was back down at Splash Point for, by far my best session yet.  Fantastic would indeed be a good way to describe it.

 By 7am we'd already had Whimbrel, Razorbill, Guillemot, Common Scoter and a few Swallows, already a decent start, but not really what you would class as fantastic. An Arctic Skua changed that. Although to call it distant would be an understatement.  It wasn't more than ten minutes before we then had a Black-throated Diver pass by.  Two lifers by 8am, not bad.

 A few Red-throated Divers, Med Gull, more Whimbrel, Scoter and Swallows came next.  Then came a Bonxie.  Or as I suppose I should say, a Great Skua.  What an impressive black dot.

 These were all well and -very- good, but nothing really stunned me quite as much as the Short-Eared Owl coming in off the sea.  Really a beautiful bird, and it certainly caught me by surprise.  

 Another Bonxie and Arctic Skua went by, but after that it did start to quiet down.  A close in Common Tern, more Med Gull, Red-Breasted Merganser and then we had reached the point when the sea went quiet.  Just as I was leaving though there came another surprise.  Rather an immense surprise.  I only caught a few second view... but Shorelark!  I was slightly bemused when it was called.  Thankfully, it was pointed out to me just before it was out of sight of my eyes -which isn't that far away.  There was no time to sort out optics.

 There, I think that lives up to Fantastic... don't you?

Happy 'Bird'day

On Saturday I celebrated my fourteenth birthday, I know, I'm getting old.  I should probably buy myself a tweed suit soon.
 But I did not write this blog with the intention of talking about my (old) age or my birthday itself for that matter.  I think you will find the day before my birthday rather more interesting.  I might have gone - 'cough cough' - twitching.  When you see what I twitched you will agree with me, all moral codes against twitching needed to be broken.  It was worth the risk of being called a twitcher (which did actually happen while I was there) to see it.  I twitched this little beauty....

 A Great-grey Shrike at Chanctonbury Ring, what fantastic birds they are too.  To say the least it made my day.  Plans to twitch Spoonbill were scrapped a few minutes after we first got onto the bird, it was about then that we realised just how good this Shrike was.  At one point it came -for half a second- within two foot of where I was standing, just astounding.

I must have spent nearly two hours photographing this bird, it was pretty mobile never staying in one spot for more than a couple of minutes before flying to a new perch.  So it kept me on my feet, I only lost it a couple of times but it was easy enough to re-find.
What a birthday treat, it was a great bird, it showed well and the light was good.  What more could you ask for?

So that was a great to start to the day, we didn't leave the Shrike until about two in afternoon so we only had time for one more quick stop before the light went.  A stop off at Shoreham Fort got me another life-tick -  Purple Sandpiper.  The light was pretty much gone by now, so this record shot will have to suffice for you.  There were seven of them there, a bird I've wanted to see for quite a while.  This one showed pretty well.

I'm not sure about by your standards, but for me that was one heck of a day out, a lifer is always appreciated, two is just amazing!  And when they show as well as they did... I managed some shots which I was fairly pleased with too.  So yes, a great way to celebrate my last day birding as a thirteen year-old.  Do you not agree?  Now how will birding be at fourteen...