Well that's the week over. Not the best conditions for Cornish seawatching, in fact possibly the very worst you could ask for! Still, as I kept telling myself, if I had even half this stuff in NW England then it would go down as a fantastic seawatch - it's all relative.
From a holiday point of view, the weather was brilliant, and taking shelter out of the wind meant that it was scorching hot right through the day. Great company was provided by Russell Wynn (the project organiser), local birder John Swann and four plankton specialists from Plymouth, which is far more interesting than it may sound!
Wednesday 22nd
5 Balearic Shearwaters 147 Manx Shearwaters 1 European Storm-petrel 1 Cormorant 3 Common Scoters 1 Great Skua 1 Yellow-legged Gull (first-summer) 1 Black-headed Gull W 300 Herring Gulls (feeding flock) 79 Kittiwakes 1 Sandwich Tern 7 Common Terns 7 Commic Terns 1 Razorbill 2 Whimbrel 2 Curlews 5 Dunlin 3 Ringed Plovers 6 Turnstones 3 Oystercatchers 2 Peregrines (juvenile and ringed adult) 3 alba Wagtails 1 Grey Wagtail 4 Tree Pipits 6 Swallows 4 House Martins 3 Ravens 4 Basking Sharks (including 1 breaching) 1 Whale sp. (probably Minke) 15+ Common Dolphins
To quote from, Cocker M. Mabey. R. (2005) Birds Britannica.-re: Bonxie, 'it possibly derives originally from the old Norse word bunki, whence came the Shetland term 'bunksi' for a dumpy, untidy , or heavily dressed person (often a woman)'.
-- Edited by Pete Hines at 01:15, 2007-08-23
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ian an all, thanks for that bonxy = gt skua,just checked the latin and still don,t see the connection but its of no matter just the learning curve getting steeper.
Well Pete seems to have had the best week so far! My week looks a lot less promising, but I'm getting quite a nice tan.
Yesterday chucked it down very heavily the morning, but the wet brought in a steady flow of petrels right throughout the day, including some quite close.
Today was pretty warm when sheltering from the force 6 northerly wind. Petrels very thin on the ground, but a better Baearic day. But the afternoon was spent looking after a BBC film crew shooting a podcast about Basking Sharks.
I've had a day off today to chill out,so been seawatching at Pendeen instead(must get a life).The totals for the week in case anyone is interested are:- Manx several thousand Balearics: 124 Sooty: 201 Poms: 2 Stormies:170 Cory's: 15 Great Shears: 3(inc. one you could see the cap in your bins it was that close) Bonxy: 12 plus Arctic Skuas,Kittiwakes,Razorbill,Guillemot,Puffin,Whimbrel,Grey Heron and thousands of Gannets. Back to landlocked Manchester tomorrow Where annual seabird sightings can usually be counted on one finger of one hand,Tom McKinney is taking over from me for a few days,hope he has a good week.
Saturdays Sightings. I,ve not been doing the count today so these figures are approximate only 5 Cory's Shearwater 100+ Sooties 1 Pom(fully spooned) 100+Storm Petrels 20+Balearics 10 Bonxies 2 Arctic Skua
And now best of all several well earned pints of Guinness
A quiter day today for Pete, but with more south-westerlies forcast over the next few days things might be looking up for him, anyway, here's his tally for today...
Balearic Shearwater- 6 Storm Petrel- 9 Manx Shearwater- 695 Basking Shark- 20, including a superb 19 one after the other going past the Runnel Stone Sunfish- 1 Common Dolphin- 5
from very early morning till early evening with a well earned 2 hours for dinner. His haul today was : 5 sooty shearwaters, 5 bonxies, 8 storm petrels, 13 balearics, 5 corys, 3 great shearwaters and 3 arctic skuas (apologies for the change of format but i'm posting this from my mobile phone whilst at work!)
County birder Pete Berry is taking part in an organised seawatch off Porthgwarra over the next week, although the seawatches are taking place at many sites across the south coast of England throughout the late summer and autumn. Today was his first day there and this is what he recorded throughout the day:
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