Well, 'galore' might be a bit strong, but I had 7 Sooty Shearwaters north this morning between 05:45 and 7:05 in nothing weather. Also 23 Manx Shearwaters, and another Balearic Shearwater (@06:23). Cracking. Tbh the Balearic was verging on a jizz-id cos of the distance (est. over a mile), but I'm good at spotting the flappy flight pattern, and at that distance I was picking up gleaming white on the Manxies whereas this one was just dirty. Put it out anyway. I like reviewing what else seawatchy is on BirdGuides, but sometimes they leave out the numbers of commoner things like Manxies that accompany the goodies. As you know, I'm inclined to suspect that everyone else (except me) is stringy note smiley ;-) and it would be nice to see which east coast seawatching sites appear to get a disproportionate number of scarce shearwaters and skuas cf. the numbers of Manxies and Arctic Skuas. I hope it's not Newtonhill.
ON a separate but related note... someone, perhaps me, should set up a website where we could gather North Sea seawatching records from observers each day from all the countries bordering it, and really get a feel for what is going on. One for next year. We could call it 'Seawatch North Sea'. Oooh, there's an explosion of imagination. Good idea?
Also this morning... 158 Northern Gannets north, and 5 south 71 Northern Fulmars, about 50 Black-legged Kittiwakes, 6 Red-throated Divers south (and 1 N), 4 Great Skuas north and 2 south, 3 Common Scoters, 4 Eurasian Teal and 3 unidentified ducks north, 20 Sandwich Terns S and 5 N. 1 Common Redshank north, and 1 annoying small wader.
Would have stayed longer today, but pesky work was demanding my attention.
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Not seen any seabirds for ages, hope my weekend trip to Mizen sorts that out...should at least get a few Balearics even if it's dead?
Dutch and Belgian seawatching are pretty well covered by trektellen.nl (except for the walhalla of Camperduin, unfortunately), e.g.:
Westkapelle: http://www.trektellen.nl/trektelling.asp?telpost=3&land=1&site=0&taal=2
Scheveningen: http://www.trektellen.nl/trektelling.asp?telpost=71&land=1&site=0&taal=2
Katwijk: http://www.trektellen.nl/trektelling.asp?taal=2&land=1&site=0&telpost=110
Some Scottish sites on there too, why don't you join!?
Martin,
I have thought much the same - that a blog or website for east coast seawatching would be interesting. I think one of the problems is that once I've entered my data into Birdtrack and then on to my blog (and if I've happened to see anything good on Birdguides too) I'm not sure I want to do it again - maybe i could just cut and paste though but it may dissuade others. I tend to have a look at the blogs and websites, yours, Boulmer Birder, Filey etc. As you say they don't always put the common species in and even if you send those in to Birdguides they often edit them out. The common stuff like Teal and kitts are often the most interesting (well ish anyway). I'd be up for giving an east coast seawatch blog a go and could try and encourage some of the folk down the coast to contribute.
Don't know if you're aware of the VisMig list that has now become a blog i believe (don't visit much now since i've moved house) - this did a similar thing for vismiging in the Pennine it took a couple of years to get going but gave a picture of what was happening across the whole Pennine and at times was fascinating.
Anyway better let you get back to the BBi.
Regards,
Alastair
Mmmmm... turns out there's lots of good stuff out there - I just never looked! But that's the problem innit... having to fill out some more stoopid record forms. I think I'll save that idea for when the kids have left home...15 years to go... 15 years to gooooooooooo!!!
Hello all, I try to put good counts of common stuff on my blog, but if I were to count every Gannet I see I would be boggle eyed in no time! Its tricky getting numbers on everything when you watch an area alone ( sob).
Its tricky getting numbers on everything when you watch an area alone ( sob).
Tell me about it! Why did no one tell me about your blog before? See you over there.
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