Saturday, September 29, 2007

Close friends get to call me MC...

... pro..vi..ding it's with digniteee, Top T**t... the indescribable Top T**t etc. ha ha. A quick seawatch before the li'l monsters came down from their Sugar-bomb and cartoon high and need to go swimming. O7:40 - 08:30, with only a very mild N 1-2 but a very choppy sea, with a nasty hazy backlight making things difficult to see. Northern Gannets were steaming through north (410 - I worked it out in ma heid that that's about 480 / hour), 47 Black-legged Kittiwakes and 328 Guillemots/Razorbills, 5 Atlantic Puffins and hold up... a Little Auk.

1 Pomarine Skua went north, and 1 Great Skua, 2 Northern Fulmars, 6 Manx Shearwaters and 1 Sooty Shearwater. The Sooty did something I haven't seen before - came up behind a gannet that was sat on the water, and tw*tted it on the back of the head as it went past, I think with its feet (or maybe belly) . Was deliberate, cos it sheared round as if for another go, but the gannet was in a bit of a mood by then and thrashed around to make it back off. Some sort of kleptoparasitism attempt? BWP is naff all use on the matter.

Otherwise, it was more ducks - 17 Eurasian Teal N, and 2 Mallards, 2 Common Scoters N and 4 Velvet Scoters S. Of patch year-tick-note, 3 Brent Geese went south - I'm pretty certain all bernicla, tho not always the easiest thing to judge in that light. A Red-throated Diver went south and a Peregrine Falcon was going back and forth along the cliffs giving the Pigeons something to do. But by that time I was hearing the junkie screams of sugar-craving sickness from our house, and I knew they needed their chocolate fudge milk.

Took Peter for a walk down to the beach in the afternoon, hoping there would be a really vocal Yellow-browed Warbler we couldn't miss. Not to be, but I did get my only patch dragonfly of the year - a girl Highland Darter.

2 comments:

Bonsaibirder said...

Hi Martin,

I find that Dark-bellied Brents tend to come past at first and last light. During the day they all seem to be Pale Bellied!

Cheers,

Steve

Martin said...

All the more reason to split them - behavioural differences :-$