Sou'westerlies slow North sea vis-mig.

A couple of weeks ago swifts and common terns could be seen heading south on a daily basis. Along came 'ex-Bertha', followed by nearly two weeks of Beaufort F6-F7 winds from the SW and migration has visibly stalled. With lighter winds swinging around to the North and North-east things are slowly picking up. I'm now witnessing a steady procession of sandwich terns, the occasional Arctic and Pom skua, a few flocks of dunlin, turnstone and probable GP's. A grey heron did a bonus flyby today and on the deck I have seen a few pied wagtails, two garden warblers and a solo reed warbler……I'm eagerly anticipating every day now as the autumnal delights of the birding world start to move south for their winter retreats. 

sandwich tern

garden warbler

garden warbler

reed warbler

reed warbler

Ghost fishing- a maritime tragedy.

I was first made aware of the problem of ghost fishing decades ago as a (much) younger undergraduate. In those days I was nowhere near as cynical as I tend to be now and naively thought that with more public awareness and education amongst the worlds' fishing fleets, the frequency of such dreadful waste could be reduced or even eliminated. Having seen so much discarded netting and long-line over the last couple of decades I am no longer sure. Encounters of dead and injured cetaceans, seabirds, sharks and turtles on the high seas appear to be just as prevalent as they ever were. I guess all we can do is to keep highlighting the problem and hope that with time the message will eventually get through to those that indiscriminately dump old fishing gear.

gannets- one dead and one dying 

On a more positive note, below are a couple of shots to highlight the truly majestic nature of these wonderful seabirds and to show them as they should be seen.