What more can one say...
Two patch ticks in June: Ringed plover and Redpoll
One patch tick in July: Common sand'
Five so far in August but that does include sparrowhawk...
All is not lost as a couple of little-ringed plovers at the beginning of the month were only the second for patch and I did sneak in a fine Leach's petrel the other night The first Full Fat of the year.
Not for the want of trying but currently limping along with 97 species and 76.78%
Not so... Happy Days.
Bushveld
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!
Yes indeedy. There has been a missive from Big Royzah. A brief missive. He's made his list, he's checked it twice and he is claiming to be in second place. No further details were forthcoming.
This is not good news, as he's ahead of everyone except the proclaimers.
Now we just need a score from Reg and we'll see how far off the pace we all are....
Yes indeedy, there is news of a full fat patch tick from Galley. Wednesday pm had been looking good for a seawatch for a few days, so I was up there as soon as I heard that there were a few bits beginning to move. At first, there was just a trickle of cory's shearwaters along with the occasional sooty and the usual numbers of manx.
However, as the afternoon progressed and the south west wind continued to increase, things gradually picked up. A couple of bonxies went through along with two arctic terns, while numbers of storm petrels began to pick up. After a couple of hours, I got on a gliding "stormie" that was fairly close in - wilson's petrel! We watched it for several minutes as it "bounced" over the waves, hardly flapping at all. No white on the underwing, and a pale bar on the upperwing - excellent!
Numbers of cory's continued to build, with the odd great shearwater going by too. Things were looking good with the wind and cloud cover building up nicely. Then disaster struck, as one of our party (thankfully not me), was summoned home by circumstances that he couldn't control. Bravely, I decided to stick it out alone, after promising not to get anything "too good".
Things settled down with cory's steadily moving through in ones and two, when I picked up a small skua - adult long-tailed skua, complete with tail streamers! Very nice, and I hoped not likely to get me in too much strife.
Into the last half hour then, and as the sky continued to darken, I got onto a bird that I didn't recognise, flapping and gliding steadily west but not banking that much, just beyond the close stream of passing manxies. Clearly smaller than manx, my first thought was "what is that?", followed closely by my second thought "wtf is that?" I briefly entertained the possibility of it being a fea's, but then it banked, showing very clean, white underwings, belly and tail, with a narrow dark border to the underwing. The wing tips looked rounded too. The upperwing didn't look as dark as manx, and appeared to have a paler patch on the outer wing, but the light wasn't great for seeing much detail. I could see the bird lifting its head a couple of times as it flew along, and saw it had a white "face" with a dark dot for an eye. At this point I realised that the bird had to be a little shearwater, but then promptly lost it in the scope. A brief moment of panic, before I scanned further right, and got on it again. By now, the bird was flying directly away from me, but the flight pattern was strikingly reminiscent of a common sandpiper, with flicking beats and short glides - amayzing!
Once I stopped shaking, I packed up and went home. I had some explaining to do....
Do I win five pounds?
Yes indeedy, the seawatching season has begun as of this very morning. The first reasonable looking SW blow today but wasn't sure quite what to expect as July hasnt even started yet! The first couple of year ticks were easy bankers (puffin and storm petrel), however an immature long-tailed skua through livened things up a bit, before a nice, close great shearwater cruised past. A few sooty shearwaters next, and then a bonxie, followed by pomarine skua and arctic skua, and then a close cory's shearwater - it was all happening!
The icing on the cake was a wilson's petrel, which took its time going by, and then, as the weather closed in, a sabine's gull snuck through, followed by two more and then a flock of three! After that, there were a few repeats, with another great shear, and a cory's, plus three more arctic skuas, before I had to bail out.
Might try for a couple more year ticks this evening though....
Yes indeedy, its June
Snooze-ville
Not much happening. Did glean a brace of stock doves when scoping a recently seeded field from the Majik Patio (tm) and also 3 (count 'em) swifts over le jardin but little else and little effort. Still, the first returning waders on the beach this morning (10 curlews and 5 oystercatchers) so ya never know - I still need redshank so hopeful of small gains to come....
and the seawatching will be starting soon too!
All to play for!
The slowest May since records began produced a pitiful 11 patch ticks during the month. The lowest number of patch ticks in May... ever. Coupled with no birds of note I'm looking forward to taking up a new pass time of stamp collecting or may be start doing some jigsaws.
89 species, 70.45%.
Happy days
Bushveld
