With fairly strong northwesterlies blowing, attention over the last couple of days has turned to a bit of seawatching with this morning being the best of the two producing some hoped-for patch year ticks.
Wildfowl were the most abundant species with quite a few Pintail, c10 Red-breasted Mergansers, Shoveler and Scaup all being new for the year, along with a good supporting cast of Tufted Ducks, Wigeon, Teal, Gadwall, Mallards, Common Scoter, Brent and Pink-Feet.
Single Sooty and Manx Shearwaters were seen heading west along with a few Bonxies, and also c15 Skuas were seen way out with most casually soaring east high along the horizon which I'm happy to leave as skua sp's, although another nearby watchpoint apparently put these down as Poms.
A good passage of Gannets were also heading west, with a few Kittiwakes, Razorbills and Guillemots and Red-throated Divers also on the move. Waders were also passing, most notably half a dozen or so Snipe, along with Dunlin, Curlew, Bar-tailed Godwit, Grey Plover and Oystercatcher.
A number of small passerines, mostly Pipits were noted flying west too, some far out to sea but some overhead too, of which some were Rock Pipits.
This evening the pager alerted me to the fact that a Long-tailed Skua was lingering off Cromer so I quickly hastened my way there, but it unfortunately flew west just as I was arriving so I decided to try to get in front of it and quickly carried on to West Runton. After a while of scanning the sea I picked up presumably the same bird*close inshore and watched as it passed by and in turn scattered a large roosting flock of mainly Black-headed Gulls off the sea before potentially going back down on to the sea presumably to roost as the light was fast going at this point.
The usual Med Gull was in the car park on its favourite post, and a few Rock Pipits were down on the beach feeding on washed up seaweed.
*Having subsequently looked at the photos of the Cromer bird it would appear that this was a different individual.
Wildfowl were the most abundant species with quite a few Pintail, c10 Red-breasted Mergansers, Shoveler and Scaup all being new for the year, along with a good supporting cast of Tufted Ducks, Wigeon, Teal, Gadwall, Mallards, Common Scoter, Brent and Pink-Feet.
Single Sooty and Manx Shearwaters were seen heading west along with a few Bonxies, and also c15 Skuas were seen way out with most casually soaring east high along the horizon which I'm happy to leave as skua sp's, although another nearby watchpoint apparently put these down as Poms.
A good passage of Gannets were also heading west, with a few Kittiwakes, Razorbills and Guillemots and Red-throated Divers also on the move. Waders were also passing, most notably half a dozen or so Snipe, along with Dunlin, Curlew, Bar-tailed Godwit, Grey Plover and Oystercatcher.
A number of small passerines, mostly Pipits were noted flying west too, some far out to sea but some overhead too, of which some were Rock Pipits.
This evening the pager alerted me to the fact that a Long-tailed Skua was lingering off Cromer so I quickly hastened my way there, but it unfortunately flew west just as I was arriving so I decided to try to get in front of it and quickly carried on to West Runton. After a while of scanning the sea I picked up presumably the same bird*close inshore and watched as it passed by and in turn scattered a large roosting flock of mainly Black-headed Gulls off the sea before potentially going back down on to the sea presumably to roost as the light was fast going at this point.
The usual Med Gull was in the car park on its favourite post, and a few Rock Pipits were down on the beach feeding on washed up seaweed.
*Having subsequently looked at the photos of the Cromer bird it would appear that this was a different individual.
