September often means Sea watching at Reculver and gives the chance to get some seabirds on the year list and see the migration as hirundines leave and Geese and waders, Auks fly by on their journeys. The last few days has seen a strong north westerly wind at Reculver and I have managed to fit in a few sessions along with a good few other birders at the towers. Seawatching can be the most boring of events as often it can be very quiet and the conditions predicted do not turn up the goods but sometimes you get a good passage of birds flying past with some passing by hopefully close enough for a few shots. Birds I have managed to see in the past few days have included c50 Great Skua, c30 Arctic Skua, 3 Pomarine Skua, 1 juvenile Sabines Gull flew west close inshore yesterday, 7 Knot, 4 Sooty Shearwater, 2+ Arctic Tern, c20 Common Tern, 1 Brent Goose, c30 Wigeon, c20 Dunlin, 4 Sandwich Tern, 1 Snipe, 1 Hobby and c20 Common Scoter. A great variety and well worth the hours of staring out to sea. Hopefully a few more sea watches as the month continues with Auks, Petrels and Shearwaters all good possibilities.
Arctic Skua
Sea watching must be rather like skywatching here Marc, nothing for ages, then a bit of excitement - sometimes :-)
ReplyDeleteBeautiful Arctic Skua, lovely to be close enough.
ReplyDeleteHi Mark
ReplyDeleteI watched off Minnis Bay yesterday (06.00 - 11.00am) but it was very quiet due to arriving far too early before the birds had time to turn up. I did see a single Sooty fly west @7.55 but little else apart from 12 Arctic Skuas, 4 Arctic Terns and 4 Black Terns etc. I watched from the same spot again today (once again from 6.00 - 11.00am) seeing a juv Sabine's which was hanging around close offshore from 6.30 - 6.40 at least but generally heading east between bouts of sitting on the sea. Also: 1 juvenile Long Tail (west @8.40) one juvenile Pom east plus 78 Arctic Skua's (7 east/71 west), 75 Bonxies (68 west/7 east), 175 Gannets, 1 Gadwall west, 38 Wigeon west, 1 Tufted Duck west, 62 Teal west, 3 Scoter 2 present and 1 east, 75 Sandwich Tern east, 16 Commic Tern east and 2 juv Arctic Terns east. Could you pass on these counts to Chris as I don't think I have his e-mail address? Cheers dude and happy snapping ... Phil M (Ramsgate moron)
ps; get yourself a moth trap perhaps??
Marc.
ReplyDeleteSea watching might be a waiting game, but it certainly paid off in the end, some really good birds passed through especially the Sabine Gull, and Skua species, nice photo of the Arctic Skua.