Friday, July 31, 2015

Good seawatch

After two long weeks of busy work and lousy weather, took half a morning off and went birding today. Left home very early - it was fine and very cold - 6.5° at 05:00 - welcome to British Summer! Started with a pretty good seawatch at Cley. I know there are better spots but I like the conditions there. There was quite good activity for the two and a half hours I was there, at least good for this time of year and (no) wind conditions. Highlight was a Cory's Shearwater, but there was plenty of other stuff: 1 Pom, 2 Arctic and 1 Great Skuas, 3 Manx Shearwaters, 1 Fulmar, about 40 Common Scoters, 1 Med Gull and 3-4 Little Gulls that flew back and forth in front of the hide all morning - the only birds of (some) interest close enough for photography.

2cy Little Gull

I then continued to check some wetlands for shorebirds but sadly water levels were very high because of all the rain in recent weeks. So at Cley and Stiffkey Fen only few long-legged shorebirds were seen. At Cley there were 20 odd Ruff, Greenshank and 1 Common Sand. At Stiffkey 9 Spoonbills and that's it more or less. On the mudflats increasing numbers of Knot and some Grey Plovers.

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