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

                                               

lameness

The sea continues to be very quiet, apart from 1 fea's on saturday am and two yesterday (I missed all of 'em!) However today I weighed in with 5 (count 'em) arctic terns so it wasn't all bad, as that means I leapfrog Cap'n Haddock in the scores on doors. Shame there's so few big shears tho, seawatching is crap without them!

Let the seawatching begin!!

OK so it wasn't quite as red-hot as it looked when I first gawped out the window at 6.00am. In fact it was by and large pish, but pom skua, stormie and sooty all through the crease by 7.30 was ok, plus I then discovered I'd omitted to tick off manxie, swift and iceland gull from the scoresheet so a whopping overall increase of six species!

Cowabunga!, as basil faulty might say...

the seawatching

Woohoo! Finally got to grips with cory's & great shearwater this pm ya bas! Happy days!

nuffin but a puffin

A quick skove around de patch yesterday pm produced a singleton puffin belting wesht past the Galley. Onward and upward!

bulmer's off Galley

wisnae me tho! Bugger!

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!