Montrose, Angus.

Recently, with widespread violent storm force winds and perilous sea states throughout most of the British and Irish sea areas, my vessel, - like many others, ran for shelter in whatever harbours and inshore waters provided a safe haven. We obtained a berth in Montrose harbour for a few days before heading back out to Lunan bay, followed by further weather standby time in St. Andrews bay when the wind veered to a more southerly direction. I took the opportunity to enjoy a few hours birding around Montrose- primarily along the stunning beach but also a few hours around the excellent Montrose basin. Winter birding highlights included a dozen or so grey plover, a handful of very smart sanderling, tree sparrows, yellowhammers, purple sandpipers and in St Andrews bay a very nice raft of circa 40 little auks and 4 velvet scoters. At a personal level it was quite satisfying being able to boost my BTO 'bird track' year list to 75 species- a very small consolation for missing my much needed Ivory gull- that has been frequenting my local home patch for some time- hmmm- I wonder if it will stick until I will be able to get home and catch up with it? - probably not. 

grey plover

grey plover

sanderling

Montrose basin

Lunan Bay, Angus.

With Beaufort storm- force 10 winds and potentially dangerous sea states forecast for much of the North sea, our vessel left the Forties field for the shelter of Lunan bay in Angus, just south of Montrose. As soon as I heard the location of our refuge I had a smile on my face with the prospect of a couple of days spent on the deck working through flocks of scoters and watching auks and divers. Unfortunately the only flocks of scoter were a couple of miles closer to the shore so I had no chance of picking out a rarity! I have not seen a single diver during the 3 days spent in the bay and assume that they too are closer inshore. From a birding perspective I have consoled myself with seeing a handful of little auks and two sightings of a dark morph arctic skua- both good birds to get on my fledgling year list that now stands at a very unimpressive 14! At least it will get a boost once I'm back ashore. The only other sighting of interest has been a couple of close passes by the resident bottle-nosed dolphins. The weather seems to have moderated significantly overnight and we will soon be heading back offshore- at least until the next Atlantic depression stirs things up again! 

Owls all at sea

Gale and severe gale force winds have put a stop to migration. After a couple of days of brisk northerlies which brought down thousands of fulmars, kittiwakes and gannets plus a smattering of little auks it now feels very quiet with just the occasional common seabird passing by. However, a couple of days ago I was treated to four short- eared owls flying over the sea and heading WSW. Quite a weird sight seeing these lovely birds on passage over the waves. I saw them all in the first hour of daylight so my photos. are not the best but they will have to do. I saw two single birds then two together and it was interesting to see them occasionally harried and mobbed by the herring and great black backed gulls- as if the owls did not have enough to contend with! Although their buoyant flight was relatively strong one bird almost ditched as it banked sharply to avoid an aerial assault from a herring gull. Hopefully they all made it ashore. I'm eagerly anticipating the wind going back around to the North and East as I'm sure a red flanked blue tail or dusky warbler could be on the agenda.

southerly gale F8 with 6 metre waves

North sea birding.

After a brilliant spell of Scottish autumnal birding I find myself back at sea - a big reality check as the North sea can be very daunting at this time of the year- and I'm looking at being here until late December! Anyway, gotta earn the dosh to pay for next years trips to Shetland and the Hebrides!

Still some light vis. mig. ongoing with wrens, robins, goldcrest, starlings, black redstarts, a woodcock, brambling, redwings and fieldfares all recorded on the deck or flying south past the vessel. Bird of the trip so far was a very tidy grey phalarope sitting on the sea about 5 NM east of Peterhead a few days ago. Today saw some good seabird passage with several thousand fulmars, hundreds of kittiwakes, scores of gannets, two pomarine skuas and 40+ little auks all heading south past the ship. Hopefully there is still time for a 'big' sibe to grace the deck of my vessel- or maybe even a firecrest! Here's hoping. I was quite content seeing several 'blue' fulmars today though.

King eider

Have not seen the sun on the north west coast for 5 or 6 days and the rain has been rather persistent so I felt the need to travel to the east coast to catch up with some sun and a few good birds. Dropped in to pick up Marcus Conway (ebirder) enroute, then headed on to Burghead where the semi- resident king eider has been seen on and off in recent times. I last saw what was presumably the same bird in December 2010 just off the point. On arrival we made a quick check of the inner harbour but the bird was not there on this occasion. Shortly after checking a few flocks of eider from near the point Marcus was quickly on the bird amongst the main flock some 500 metres east of us and just north of the 'maltings'. We quickly relocated and enjoyed some nice views of the bird- although still showing some evidence of his 'eclipse' plumage he is still a cracking bird. Fortunately as the tide was high the bird was within a couple of hundred metres for most of our encounter. (and the sun came out!).

the 'King'

The Moray firth always seems to hold good numbers of birds and we also enjoyed seeing a little auk, common and velvet scoter, long-tailed duck, red-throated divers as well as a few knot, redshank and turnstone.

long-tailed duck

common scoter

Baffin bay seabirds

Due to a lack of satellite coverage and minimalistic internet availability, it has not been possible to update my blog for some time. I finished my seabird survey work yesterday and am now ashore in Upernavik awaiting my flight on Saturday. The weather is just starting to turn and the sea ice is building rapidly up north and starting to push southwards by the day. Many of the seabirds- the skuas and arctic terns in particular have already headed south, leaving the open ocean to the little auks, Brunnich's guillemots, fulmars and a few glaucous gulls.  Here's a selection of my seabird snaps from the last month :-

glaucous gull

glaucous gull bathing

dark morph fulmar

little auk

little auk

kittiwake

pomarine skua 

Brunnichs' guillemot guarding chick

iceland gull