Saturday 5 November 2016

A bit blowy

Glaucous and GB-b Gulls

A sharp northerly, bit more than a breeze and a seawatch was required, both Papay and NRon have had some good birds from the sea of late.

Point of Buckquoy was no good as the car was rocking around like crazy so I tried walking out to the buildings on Northside, but the wind direction meant there was no shelter, well so as I could actually see the sea. In the end I parked by the fisherman's hut at the base of Skiba Geo. That is an odd sort of seawatch place but it worked, I had shelter and using the big scope I could see birds passing. There were a lot of birds passing, a stream of Fulmars amd a good few Gannets amongst them. A distant Sooty went by, then a close one, very nice. A Great Northern or two, then excellence, a year tick, 1cy Glaucous Gull.


A tiny thing disappeared in the waves and then a while later another. They had to be Little Auks but the view just wasn't good enough. Twenty minutes later a whirring wee thing flew through the bay giving excellent views, brilliant!

2 comments:

Simon Douglas Thompson said...

What a fabulius, yet dangerous, sea

Alastair said...

Yes it can be very destructive here when it gets going, a thing of beauty, a thing to fear.