Shear delight

After a few days of fog and light, variable winds, the forecast of a reasonable blow with a significant westerly element raised my pulse rate and guaranteed that I was on watch early the following morning. I was not disappointed, as two great shearwaters flew 100 metres or so off the port bow as I gathered my waterproofs, hat, notebook and binoculars from the bridge! From then on and over the last three days I have enjoyed three figure counts of great shearwaters, intermingled with scores of Cory's! Some birders would say that when you have seen one large shear you have seen them all, but I disagree, find them totally captivating and have no problem watching them shear and glide over the swell and waves for hours on end. Surprisingly, and contrary to the large numbers of sooty shearwaters reported from Irish sea-watching sites, I have only seen one in the last 3 days- maybe they hug the Irish coast more as they drift SE? I also had the bonus of seeing flocks of Sabines' gulls- a group of 3 and a group of five. Unfortunately being on a 92 metre vessel, with a GRT of over 9000 tonnes means that many birds are rather ship-shy, occasionally however, a large shear made a relatively close pass, allowing me to try for a couple of shots. Good numbers of Arctic and 'comic' terns have also been seen flying south and an additional grey phalarope and a turnstone have been the only other obvious passage birds. I suppose we should see some significant skua passage before too long, but with the exception of a solo, spoon-laden pom and a few locally foraging bonxies they have yet to make an appearance. Happy days!

great shearwater- close pass at last!

Add caption

Cory's - unusually close in!

brilliant birds!

The Porcupine Seabight

The Porcupine Seabight is an interesting oceanographic feature located a hundred or so nautical miles  WSW off the southern coast of Ireland. It is a large depression where the water rapidly deepens and leads out to the abyssal depths of the North Atlantic. The strong ocean currents form nice areas of nutrient-rich upwelling so there is often an abundance of marine life- plankton, shoals of pelagic fish including albacore and yellow-fin tuna, cetaceans and seabirds- at least that is what it said in the tourist brochure! In all honesty there have been good numbers of fin whales- sometimes 5 or 6 in a day, the fishing fleets of Ireland and Spain are actively fishing for tuna, but seabirds have been rather scarce. Admittedly I see gannets and fulmars every day but numbers are low. A few lesser black-backed gulls have followed the survey vessel on occasion and I have had good days where I have seen four species of shearwater- Great, Corys, Sooty and Manx- but again numbers have been disappointing. I have also see a few bonxies, 2 Sabines gulls- both magnificent adults in summer plumage a few storm petrels and 1 wilson's petrel- I can't complain but I hope that numbers increase over the coming weeks! Unfortunately I have struggled with poor light and distant birds so taking photographs has been challenging, although this morning a great shearwater came within 40 metres of the bow, allowing me to rattle off a few snaps. Hopefully the sunshine and a nice Fea's or Bulwer's petrel are not too far away! 

great shearwater

great shearwater

nice flock of manx shearwaters

manx shearwaters- incredible how the light affects the plumage tones!

Old man of Stoer

Fairly typical summer birding at the moment with things being generally quiet. I briefly considered a big drive south to try and get onto the Bridled tern, but with the bird being rather mobile I really couldn't justify a gamble on that much fuel- ditto the Argyl Ascension frigatebird! After my month at sea I felt the need to enjoy the good weather and stretch my legs, so I spent a few hours on the coast path between Stoer lighthouse and Stoer head. This stretch of coastline is famous for the sea stack known as the 'old man of Stoer', the area occasionally attracts a good migrant or two and can also be good for spotting basking sharks and a number of marine mammal species. There were good numbers of tourists on the coast paths and few birds about, although I did enjoy looking down on the seabird colonies. A few pairs of bonxies patrolled the headlands, there were good numbers of recently fledged wheatears and a colour-ringed twite was probably bird of the day. I also saw 3 summer plumaged dunlin come in off the sea from the NW- I wonder if that signals the start of 'autumnal' wader passage?

old man of Stoer

great skua

guillemots

razorbills

skylark

twite with coloured leg rings