4 Yellow-legged Gulls and 13 Snipe passed Whitburn Obs by 11.15 today both setting new Obs records. The previous best being 1YLGull and 8 Snipe. It was a great disappointment when Stoney and myself arrived at the obs in a northerly to find the mist and fog restricting us to bins only. That's how it stayed for the whole watch and it proved to be a fantastic benefit as we concentrated on the close birds pushed in by the fog.
It was very fortunate that Fos called by as being 'the Gull man' he put us onto the Yellow-legged Gulls and i even called one myself. They were part of a massive large gull movement involving a few thousand birds. Hoggie even jammed onto the 4th bird though sadly Sir Ian had left to search out migrants.
So no Shearwaters today as hoped for but it turned out ok in the end
This is what we saw in order of appearance
Wednesday 14th September 06.05-11.15 NNW 3 mist/fog
Curlew 3n 3s
Gannet 313n
Black h Gull 54n 5s
Goosander 6s
Common Tern 71n
Wigeon 299n
Teal 163n
LBBGull 7n 2s
Common Gull 9n
Scan Herring Gull 3n
Yellow-legged Gull 4n all 1st w
Redshank 5n
Turnstone 12n
Sand Martin 1n
Golden Plover 8n 12s
Shag 1n 1s
Pintail 6n
Ruff 1n
Sandwich Tern 5n
Brent Goose 8n pb
Common Scoter 2n
Shelduck 1n
Dunlin 51n
Bar t Godwit 1n 1s
Gadwall 1n
Snipe 12n 1s
Knot 1n
Ringed Plover 1n
Eider 1n
Arctic Skua 2n
