Saturday 10 October 2015

Just when you thought it was safe.......

Sooty Shearwater and a Bonxie passed Whitburn Obs this morning but the star of the show was a Basking Shark. It went slowly north circa 800yds offshore. Its triangular dorsal fin was not particularly impressive compared to the Dolphins we see locally and its tail fin wasn't always prominent. Its my first ever and i hope more people get to see it as it goes north as the sea is calm and flat
Magic and Saint Mark joined me sadly they had both left before the Shark. We had a decent variety of birds including a new Obs list year tick, Kingfisher, bringing my year list to circa 157
This is what we saw in order of appearance

Saturday 10th October 06.55-10.30 NW1-2 calm sea bright sun with light cloud
Grey Heron 1s
Eider 6n 5s
Red th Diver 4n 4s
Black h Gull 63n 69s
Common Gull 12n 2s
Curlew 3n
Common Scoter 34n 3s
Shag 2s
Porpoise 1
Med Gull 1n ad
Bonxie 1n
Kingfisher 1n
Red br Merganser 1s
Wigeon 5n
Redshank 1n
Sooty Shearwater 1n
Pink footed Goose 180sTeal 2s
09.20 Basking Shark slowly north when lost to view