With the continuing strong winds I was back over to the Point Of Ayr this morning for the next course of seawatching. Today I decided to join a couple of chaps on top of the dunes – one of whom was in possession of the type of thick, long, white beard you only see on busts of greek philosophers. Superb.If anything, the wind had abated a little today and shifted more to the north-west. Despite the favourable conditions, the fare was rather poor with only a brace of distant dark-phase Arctic Skuas keeping up the interest over the first ninety minutes.
After a couple of hours there was the first hint of excitement when a possible petrel was picked up on the horizon. I did not get a decent view of the bird as it was distant and keeping well down in the troughs – a little too far to claim a Leach’s I reckon!
Then, just as the morning was about to fall flat on its face, an unexpected bird turned up in the shape of a Black Guillemot – my first on the Dee Estuary. Like its auk cousins it was flying low and close to the shore, revealing itself to be an adult moulting into winter plumage.
After three hours of sustained protest from my numbed backside I decided to call it day and head back to the hutch. A day that had promised much had been a bit of an anti-climax really, especially when I logged on the internet and saw that New Brighton had recorded a Sabine’s Gull, Balearic Shearwater and Long-tailed Skua.
But, hey, that’s just the way it roles sometimes.
Until later.
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