Saturday 19 May 2007

Utter rubbish

Heysham Obs
As the modified posting on the LDBWS site implied after last night's weather forecast, seawatching today was a complete waste of time. There was nothing weather-wise to the south of here to push anything into the Bay and more evidence that the windfarm is stopping even minor deviations by Gannet, Fulmar and Manx Shearwater which should have been in reasonable numbers today

Sea coverage north wall 0630-1400ish
Gannet 4
Manx Shearwater 2
Fulmar 2
Arctic Skua dark morph out - the ONLY skua seen in the Bay today!
Red-throated Diver 1
Pink-footed Goose - late flock of 14 to the NW at 0840hrs

Inshore
Whimbrel - 1
Little Gull - 1st S Heysham 2 outfall low tide
Arctic Tern - c17 Heysham outfalls low tide
Common Tern - 2 outfalls low tide

Elsewhere
Male Scoter spp on the sea off JBP before flying out & landing in the 'middle of the bay'. (The) Black Scoter not ruled out but no features whatsoever to suggest this was not just a male Common other than circumstances!

PS I went to the Solway just after midday!!