Cory's Bonanza

 Yes indeedy, the seawatching has been rather good so far this autumn, and I have caught up with veritable truckloads of cory's shearwaters past Galley, along with smaller number of great shearwaters, an epic wilson's petrel, just the one balearic shearwater, a couple of sabine's gulls, three arctic terns, two tysties (scream for me Stevie G) and a rather brief (for me) fea's-type petrel. 

All this puts me up to pole position too, until Basil remembers some gank that he hasn't year-ticked, or actually goes out and does a proper seawatch himself....

There's not a whole lot left to get on the year-listing front as far as seabirds are concerned, but that won't stop me having another crack if the wind goes south-west again over the next few weeks...

Fea's Fun

After last years total seawatch flop, this year has been slow enough to start but finally got going over the last couple of days. I managed a wee warm-up 10 days ago or so, with a distant cory's shearwater, arctic terns and a storm petrel but things definately improved yesterday with a bit more movement through the crease. The morning was slow enough, with just a single great shearwater, a couple of sooty shearwaters and a bonxie, but by the evening session things were definately happening, with 48 (count 'em) cory's, another great Shear, and a pomarine skua through.

Seawatching off Galley this am

                                                     

Fast forward to this am, and a truckload of rain. I kept my eye on the Met Error (tm) rainfall radar though, and decided to chance a start at 8.30, when the vis was beginning to lift a bit. By 9 am I'd had 3 cory's and a single great shear, when all of a sudden, out of the gloomy horizon I noticed another "large shear" coming in. This quickly turned out to not be a large shear, and as the bird banked I could see the distinctive dark underwings and bright white underparts of a fea's-type petrel!! The bird continued to work its way west, banking and gliding, but unfortunately didn't come much closer, but still, it was tremendous to get another one - my first since July 2013, so its been quite a while! Majik!

Cory's  and great shears continued to pass for the next hour and half, along with 5 bonxies and a juvenile long-tailed skua, which sneaked through in a rain shower and was most welcome for the patch year list. A great morning's work!

Count 'em! Greats on the left, Cory's on the right

                                               

stunning seawatch

Got me arse oot to Galley for 15.30 yesterday after hearing of some big numbers of big shears off Mizen. Very glad that I did too! The mist was well down when I got out there, 1st bird through the scope was a manx, followed shortly after by a cory's  and 3 greats! A good start! The mist gradually lifted, but the large shears were still passing incredibly close - within 200 metres some of them! Tremendous views!

And then a fea's-type petrel flew past, which was nice!  and an hour later there was another one! And then 40 mins after that came number three! All slightly different on plumage - amayzing!

Finished up with about 250 cory's and 50-odd greats, plus the supporting cast included several more year ticks - 5 (count 'em) long-tailed skuas, 7 poms, 3 arctics, plus a jammy turnstone too! A few sooties and bonxies thrown in too. All good! Will have to keep seawatching though, cos I still need sab's and common tern!

Oh look - 4th place!

fea's fun

feck! that makes four now! wow! wasn't my find but was really glad i hadn't bailed out 3 minutes earlier when I said I was going home! really enjoyed the swearing afterwards as it scooted past! Fantastic!