8 Little Gulls 2 Bonxies and 300 plus Manxies were joind by White beaked Dolphins today, they were the stars of the show
Yes it is a theatre of dreams, and the seats are free!. I was on my own this morning and again the sea was a fantastic colour for watching with full cloud so no pesky sun to get in the way. It started slowly but soon built up to a frenzy. I needed to leave at 7 am as i have a lot of work to catch up on but it took 10 minutes to close the shutters what with 2 Great crested Grebes and the first Red throats and Whimbrel of the morning going through
On top of all that Dolphins!. At 05.30 i had 4 moving steadily north for 20 minutes not very active just showing the fins but sometimes enough body to nail the id as White beaked
Then at 06.10 i noticed a distant fishing boat on the horizon with lots of birds following it, i looked through my scope and another dolphin was continuously fully breaching. I cant be sure if it was one of the original animals as id lost them earlier
Then at 06.30 i had 2 more much closer in inspecting an area where Gannets were plunge diving, looks like the food has moved closer inshore today
Bet we get a Minke later
Here's what i saw in order of appearance
Thursday 11th of July 04.35-07.10 NE2 full cloud
Manxie 254n 50s
Common Scoter 167n
Black h Gull 5n
Puffin 174n 2s
Little Gull 8n all adults
Sandwich Tern 9n 17s
Bar t Godwit 2n
05.30 White beaked Dolphin 4 n
Curlew 1n
Common Tern 16n 2s
06.10 Single White beaked distantly breaching near a fishing boat
Bonxie 2n
Wigeon 1n
Arctic Tern 9n
06.30 White beaked Dolphin 2 n closer inshore amongst feeding Gannets
Great crested Grebe 2n
Red th Diver 1n
Whimbrel 1n
As for the Bridled Tern what can i say its eluded us from the Obs, i saw it at Cresswell so its on my British list but the more important county list will have to wait.........
