Wednesday 26 August 2015

Black Tern and Pom

I arrived at Teignmouth at 6:30 full of anticipation after the overnight wind and rain. The first scan over the sea showed a strong passage of Sandwich Terns (150+ for the whole 2 hours 30 mins), with these were four Common Terns. An adult Arctic Tern lingered fairly close in to shore landing on the sea for a while, and a Black Tern flew south fairly distantly at 7:30. Later on, 15 'commic' tern and 25 distant tern species flew south.

Skuas seen included four Great Skua, one Pomarine Skua, one Arctic Skua and two other small skua sp., one of which was mobbing one of the distant Great Skuas.

I had to wait almost an hour until I saw my first shearwaters - totals included 10 Balearics and 11 Manx with a further 20+ which were too far away to identify. One flock of six Balearics passed fairly close at 8:45, swiftly followed by another single.

Other birds included 140+ Gannet, 41 Fulmar, 62+ Kittiwake, 13 Common Scoter and another probable juvenile Yellow-legged Gull. A Harbour Porpoise surfaced once but there was still no sign of the Bonaparte's Gull.

Arctic Tern

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