A glance at the leaderboard after a lengthy period of neglect revealed I was languishing waaaaaaaay down the order in something like second-last place... which, let's face it, with Reg yet to post a tally, essentially means last.
Despite the fact it was blowing a steady easterly, and Lord Seppy maintains "One should never bother one's hole going seawatching in anything but a howling southwesterly with drizzle and fog," news from a visiting old-school birder that Cory's were passing Galley at a rate of 100+ per hour spurred me into reluctant action. Off I headed for the patch.
A fine Med Gull from the wee causeway was the first year tick, followed on arrival at the appointed seawatching position by a rake (technical term) of Cory's hooching past from east to west with a few Great Shears in amongst 'em. A couple of Arctic Terns added a fourth year-tick in quick succession. Happy daze!
Then just as the clouds parted, the sun came out and everything went dead, a string of Manxies flew into my scope view, towing a browner, tubbier looking bird along behind them. They banked, revealing the trailing bird's muddy-looking underparts. Balearic Shearwater for my fifth (count-em) year tick of the day and a full-fat patch tick to boot.
All of these ocean-gazing japes took less than an hour, without getting cold and wet: that's my kind of seawatching! I would be only too delighted to announce that's me done with seawatching for the year -- but alas I still have no skewers on the year-list... FARCE!
So where does that leave us? Well, added to an eclectic assortment of undeclared year ticks (including gank like Manxie and Puffin from an earlier seawatch, Swift, a rather fine Sabines Gull and a few other bits and pieces) it catapults me to second place on 87.92%.
That's a small bit better!
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