Seawatching traumas

It blew from the north yesterday late afternoon so my thinking, based
on Yorkshire experience, was to go seawatching this morning, that
might have been a mistake as skuas were pouring south past Costa into
Eynehallow Sound yesterday pm - rats.

Now this morning a good old westerly was blowing so I thought I'd try
the north side of Marwick Head; bad plan. Too high and too near The
Brough of Birsay which was deflecting some considerable numbers of
birds that were cutting in but not soon enough, nonetheless 1800
Fulmars an hour were heading south.Having marched up and down the head
I marched back down again and drove south to the bay. Found myself a
nice spot south of the car park and braved the elements. I was
rewarded with a Sooty, 7 Manx (one of which tickled my toes) huge
numbers of Fulmars ( or two hundred very frantic ones flying in
circles) c1700 hour south and c600 hour north. A steady trickle of
kittiwakes south (60 an hour, half juvs, juvs flying closer inshore
than ads interestigly) Bonxies every which way and two likely
phalaropes which were just too far away to be sure of. At least next
time I'll know where to watch from and when the north wind blows I'll
go seawatching immediately (work and family permitting).

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Dipper

So I couldn't find the Pec Sand, 3 attempts; couldn't find the 2
barred xbills, 20 minutes too late; missed the Snow Goose and too late
for the Little Stint - I'm rubbish at twitching, tendancy to
insufficient perseverence. Did have a good day though, both godwits,
Knot, Sanderling, Greenshank, Hen Harrier, SEO and a mystery bunting
at Hestily (probably Reed Bunting, odd call though). The north wind
doth blow so a look at the sea will be called for tomorrow.

Listening to the Woodstock anniversary programme on 2, 40 years ago,
now that makes me feel old. Jimi still sounds amazing (The Band were
wonderful too).

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Marwick Bay and the Loons

The earlier post for today, Deerness, refers to yesterday as the enail
refused to work until this evening, until I'd rebooted the BBerry.

Minke Whales were still present this evening off Marwick Bay (I saw
6-8 on Monday evening). But no Manxies this time. Fulmars were going
south at 540 an hour and 38 Bonxies went south in the same time, this
was very different from Monday when any movement appeared to be
northward. At The Loons there were two Hen Harriers ( a juv & an adult
female) a Short-eared Owl and a huge flock of Swallows, conservatively
estimated at about 1500. This morning there had been Meadow Pipits
around the house for the first time and there have been at least 10
House Martins around and about with more seen across Mainland as I
drove too and fro to Kirkwall for a meeting.

One of those strange people things happened today as I found one of
the six people on the same table in the meeting as me knows one of my
oldest friends. I always find that kind of thing slightly odd.

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Deerness

Nipped down to Deerness after a meeting in Kirkwall this afternoon.
Sandside Bay held a small group of adult and juvenile Arctic Terns.
Adult terns were freely catching small fish. A juvenile Arctic Skua
went north through the bay as did an adult and a couple of Bonxies.
Flurries of Kittiwakes (all adults) and Common Gulls were also going
north close inshore. A surprise was a juvenile Little Gull which also
went north. Plenty of moaning Grey Seals at tbis site too.

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Man on Wire

This film was on BBC2 the other evening. Years ago BBC2 and Channel 4 used to show good numbers of non-English language movies but these days they are a rare thing indeed. Most of this movie was in English in any case but it had a very French flavour. Certainly a 9/10 movie, staggeringly good. Click here if you missed it.

mima

We went to mima (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art) today. I quickly grabbed an opportunity to add a picture to my Birds and Galleries series by snapping this Moorhen on the pond outside the gallery. The Moorhens had bred and had one chick. Other species present were House Sparrow and many and various assorted Mallard type quackers + the ubiquitous Herring Gull (in my experience always present at art galleries) which I narrowly missed snapping.

Some very impressive art including "Possibilities and Losses: transitions in clay" a multi-artist installation which was scary and thought provocking (click here). Firstly a huge, precipitous mountain of crockery and secondly a dual video installation documenting the skill of those working in the pot industry paralleled with the destruction of the factory where they had worked. If you are near the Tees well worth a visit.

The fountain outside is spectacular fun as well.

Comments

I've removed restrictions on comments, apologies Nick, if you weren't signed in to Blogger or Open ID when you made comment it went to moderation and I hadn't set up the email alert on this. Fixed now but may have to review if I get spammed.

... appears to be the answer to yesterday's question. Indeed all have shoved off, a new female Red-backed Shrike on Deerness being the only "rare" interest remaining.

Franklin's Gull

This is a species that I'm keen to see; although I'd much rather find one; will it hang on?

This post was a bit of an experiment, to see if I could post from my mobile, which I can. I've now edited it to tidy it up ... can I send a picture? Next attempt coming up.

GWE proof(ish)

Louise produced a very blurry picture of the Great White Egret as some sort of proof, pah!

Crossbills again and gripped off

The crossbill invasion continues. It appears that I was over-optimistic about the identity of the wing barred birds as Lindsay Cargill reckons they are most likely Common Crossbill. Wing barred Crossbills can be tricky as evidenced by these and others in the past. There are some interesting photos in the Common Crossbill section on BirdGuides of other wing barred birds. Lindsay's blog posts on this issue make interesting reading too.

Absolutely and totally gripped off ... Louise has cunningly obtained directions to the Great White Egret at Graemeshall Loch and twitched it, rubbing it in by phoning me during the observation aaaaaggghhhhhhh!!!

Crossbills

Currently a crossbill invasion going on - have a look at Orkbird for info.

The birds posted on Birdguides are of interest, I suspect both of these are 2-barred xbills - but I'm prepared to stand corrected.