Bridlington Skua cruise



I went on the Bridlinton Skua and shearwater trip today for the first time. seas were flat and the wind has been relatively calm for the last 4 days so I didn't hold out much hope of seeing much.
On the way out there was quite a bit of common stuff including razorbills, guillimots shag, sandwich and common tern. It wasn't long before we saw our first skua-an arctic, followed quickly by a sooty shearwater then a balearic shearwater, then the highlight of the trip was an adult sabines gull (which I unfortunately didn't see) then a great skua, arctic tern, little gull and a manx shearwater.
We toured round further out and put out a line of chum but this only attracted gbb, herring gull and fulmar.
The sun came out briefly and a breeze got up and this seemed to stir the gannets into action.
At about 11.30 we started to head back and closer to land we saw some more arctic skuas and quite a number of black terns and a small party of red throated divers.
By all accounts today was one of the better trips in term of species but there was not as many shearwaters as i'd hoped.That said it was a cracking day and I'll definitely be going back.
Arctic skua
Arctic skua
Manx shearwater
Manx shearwater
Sooty shearwater
Arctic skua
Arctic skua
Arctic skua and common tern
Gannet
Great black backed gull
Arctic tern
Little gull
Gullimot
Razorbill
Gullimot
Shag
Harbour porpoise

Patrington Haven

I've been to Pat Haven 4 times in the last week with very varying results.First couple of visits were pretty unsuccessful, plenty of waders but set up in the wrong place or arrived too late.
there was some good birds though including marsh harrier, short eared owl, kingfisher and curlew sandpiper being the best, along with whimbrel, curlew,ringed plover, green sandpiper, golden and grey plover, avocet, turnstone, dunlin, snipe, hundreds of swallows, and good sized flocks of yellow wagtails and goldfinches.
I went again this morning with curlew sandpiper as the target bird, I picked out a spot and waited.Pretty soon there were hundreds of waders whizzing about all over the place, including a pair of cs's right in front of me.
It was quite a spectacle for about an hour until the tide completely flooded the lagoon and they all dispersed.
I went on to the end of the track and it was full of swallows and yellow wagtails.
there was also a few waders roosting on the rocks but no sign of the massive flocks that were flying about as the tide came in.
Brid skua cruise tomorrow which is a first for me, will post details here tomorrow.