Saturday 13th October

The fresh mild southerly drew focus towards the sea again but whereas yesterday’s 1½ hours early morning effort produced just one Gannet, today paid dividends with a Long-tailed Skua slowly through south at 09:15. Also south went 66 Gannet, 17 Kittiwake, 13 Common Scoter, nine Great Skua (including one out of the estuary), five Fulmar, four Great Northern Diver (plus a diver sp.), three Razorbill (plus 5 auk sp.), an Arctic Skua (plus two skua sp.) and one of the semi-resident Eider.

A selection of counts during high tide in The Bight, Warren Point and near estuary included 87 Dunlin, 66 Dark-bellied Brent Goose, 26 Ringed Plover, 20 Grey Plover, 16 Bar-tailed Godwit, five Mediterranean Gull (one at sea), four Great Crested Grebe (two at sea), four Sandwich Tern (one at sea), three Shelduck, two Sanderling, the Slavonian Grebe, and single Red-breasted Merganser, Greenshank, Knot, juv Curlew Sandpiper and Common Tern.  An Osprey disturbed all the gulls late lunchtime, hanging high in the wind for a time over the estuary.

Dark-bellied Brent Geese - Simon Thurgood

 Slavonian Grebe - Lee Collins. Herbert has been resident for the last 11 years.

Refugee gulls were abundant and of 276 Great Black-backed Gull, 70 made to out south during the morning.  Among those that remained, largely on Finger Point, they were joined for 20 minutes by an adult presumed Baltic Gull.  It’s distinctly velvety and blacker upperparts stood out against the backdrop of Great Black-backed Gulls, emphasised by the absence of white primary tips; a single mirror in P10 and generally delayed moult except for dropped inner primaries, and its long attenuated appearance all made for a good candidate. Notwithstanding conjecture about its actual identify, this was a beautiful gull.

Presumed Baltic Gull

Elsewhere, the bushes were blown out and offered little more than 28 Goldfinch and 7 Chiffchaff.  Three Raven seemed to be enjoying the breezy conditions, but 13 Skylark ardently pressing into the headwind not so much.