Another day with more strong winds, so it was a fairly early start on the front looking west! The morning was not great to be honest, 1477 Manxies, two Whimbrel and three Risso's Dolphins were the highlights. Late afternoon Lauren did a bit more seawtaching and pulled the first Sooty Shearwater out of the bag for the year.
A few Willow Warblers and a Whitethroat were the only other birds of note, and quite a bit of heavy rain in the afternoon meant more indoor admin could be done - ordering nice new banded tote bags for the shop!!!
So while sitting looking for more stock for the shop I received a message from Rich B on Skokholm saying that he had just seen a Cory's from the lighthouse on Skokholm! Inspired by Rich's success I went out to the front of the Obs and looked out to sea - Manxies, and lots and lots and lots of them! they were passing at a rate of 240 per minute (14.400 per hour), increasing to 325/minute later on (19,500 per hour). The total for the dat was about 20,000!
Manx Shearwater |
Shear Madness!!! |
by now my brain was beginning to hurt! Four big Shearwaters in two hours, just madness. This was one, if not the best swatch I had ever done from the island and I was quite buzzing...
I went back into our house at 21:35 and told Emma what I had seen and immediately phoned Reg on the mainland to tell him. I was ecstatic. Then I got a message from Skokholm... Rich and Giselle had just seen no fewer than Eight Cory's and a Great past Skok! I was still buzzing, but felt a bit like I had been smashed by the Observatory in the south - there is no competition between us - honest!!
Well what a brilliant evening.. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.
No comments:
Post a Comment