Sooty and 176 Manx Shearwaters, 325 Sandwich Terns and a Green Sandpiper passed Whitburn Obs by 08.30. Another canny sea watch and the train kept a rollin on my Obs year list with the Green Sandpiper making it 143, and all this on a westerly. Add to this the Bonaparte's gull i saw on the way home, found this year by Ian Mills.....not a bad start to the day
The Obs was busy with Mark, Derek Lawrence, Pink Floyd and a newbie, here's what we saw in order of appearance
Saturday August 10th 04.55-08.30 W2 cloud cover, good light early on
Curlew 5n 2s
Black h Gull 18n 13s
Porpoise 4s
Oyster Catcher 44n
Manxie 55n 121s
Arctic Tern 4n 2s
Common Tern 29n 217s
Redshank 1s
Red th Diver 1n 1s
Common Gull 5s
Whimbrel 1s
Sandwich Tern 24n 301s
Green Sandpiper 1s
Wigeon 1s
Arctic Skua 1s
Dunlin 2s
Sooty Shearwater 1s
Puffin 1n 1s
Grey Plover 1n
Ringed Plover 3n
Shoveller 5n
Mallard 2s
Turnstone 5n
Maybe tomorrow we will get a Balearic or Cory's, seems plenty to the south of us
