a few big shears thru

Monster seawatching de last couple of days - 800 cory's & 57 great shears last night, followed by a whopping 1,107 cory's & 290 great shears this am - that's 2,254 big shears over 6.5 hours, which is 5.7 shears per minute! Busy!

little orc ya bas!

Well! What a jammy bit of luck that was! I'd made the effort to go for a seawatch this am, but aside from a blue fulmar mealying around there wasn't much happening. Two small waders flushing around the rocks got me thinking of purps (they weren't turnstones anyway) but they blew away in the wind when I tried to stalk them. Back to the scope for another 5 mins, then packed up. Just standing up, lifting my trusty Scope Porter tm, when I noticed a bunch of kits going by close in, with what looked like a small dark wader even nearer. A quick perusal thru the spare car bins (left me leakys at home by mistake!) revealed that the wader was actually a little auk, complete with small dark bill and white streaks on the wing! Fantastic! Only my 3rd sighting on patch, with c.4 off Galley in pre-patch days (2002 i tink), and 1 wrecked on the lake in Feb '05! Major score and re-opens the daylight between me & 2nd & 3rd, with both FPS and Shakey needing two species again to take top spot! And I haven't checked the lake yet today either!!

whopper swan!

Checked the lake earlier - nowt doing. Just checked it again - whooper swan!! Fantastic! 148 for de year now - can I hit 150?

goldeneye anyone?

Er, there would appear to be a goldeneye on the lake! Hoo Hoo!

red-flanked bluetail on my patch!!!

Woohoo! All courtesy of "old spoons" cronin - he da man! I verified it tho, and it is one! Corking!