Took a phone call this morning from my Mum to say that whilst she had been walking along Cromer prom an hour or so earlier she had noticed a large dark bird with slightly paler underparts on the sea close inshore which just didn't look right for the Cormorants she was used to seeing along there and made a wild guess that maybe it was a diver sp. and although she is a non-birder she has naturally taken in a bit of knowledge over the years so it was certainly worth following up.
A check of the sea where she had seen it drew a blank, so I decided to look the other side of the pier where I quickly found a Guillemot, and then locked on to her bird which I was delighted to see was a Shag and watched as it slowly drifted back west round the pier back to where she had originally found it, an excellent find and my first July record of one on the patch, and maybe anywhere in the county, with my previous earliest being a few which were around in late August '08.
A further scan of the sea revealed that there were 3 Arctic Skuas, all pale-phase adults, wheeling around high above the horizon slowly heading east, my first of the year, and the tail-end of what was undoubtedly a Little Gull was seen disappearing round the pier.
