Deceptive weather...

Deceptive. Y'see I thought it was pretty chilly last 24 hours (sorry to bang on about the weather, but I am English). Apparently though, last night was unbearably warm, according to an unknown midnight perambulator who, I noticed this morning, had been compelled to remove and then leave behind on the clifftop bench what I shall call in deference to any American readers, their pantyhose (that's knickers and tights to the Brits).

Another 2 hours of dashed albatross hopes this morning - face it Martin, you've been stood up. It's like at the school disco 1986 all over again. Some wounds run deep - you know who you are. So what did turn up... 05:35 -07:50, northerly breeze. A trickle of 16 Manx Shearwaters going north, with 345 Northern Gannets north (12 south). There was a bit of a passage of Arctic Terns going north (42) with a single Common Tern and some 'Commic's in a distant feeding flock of about 200 Black-legged Kittiwakes (I think the Commics were Arctic too. It's a jizz thing - don't tell Bill!). Only 10 Sandwich Terns. Bit of skua stuff - 6 Arctic Skuas heading north out of the North Sea and one other pale adult that looked Pom-like (that jizz thing, but also size and shape), in fact I',m 90% certain it was a Pomarine Skua, but the spoons were missing and I wasn't quite happy. 5 Great Skuas north.
And the rest - 16 Common Scoters north, 3 Eurasian (Green-winged) Teal with a flock of Guillemots (Common Murres) slightly more unusual, 2 Red-throated Divers (Loons) north), a Common Black-headed Gull and a Common Gull south, and 2 Eurasian Curlews. 3 Razorbills on the water had chicks in tow, and there were lots of Atlantic Puffins offshore, and a few Northern Fulmars back and forth. Also a Peregrine Falcon went north at speed and came back at leisure with prey.

There was a single Harbour Porpoise close inshore, but best of all, a couple of dark sluggish fins that broke surface and I tentatively assumed to be Bottle-nosed Dolphins subsequently turned into a fireworks display of 6 White-beaked Dolphins - breaching repeatedly full out of the water in all directions in a tight huddle, about a mile out. Went on for a couple of minutes. Spectacliar.