30 Dec 2020
30 Dec 20 - 2020 Last Knockings
24 Dec 2020
24 Dec 20 - Happy Christmas 2020
5 Dec 2020
22 Nov 20 - This Autumn Keeps On Giving
Sunday 22 Nov was a great contrast, with mild, still, overcast conditions. I took the telescope with me for another seawatch: this time from my normal viewpoint overlooking Billy Winspit's Garden. Billy Winspit was the owner of the cottage in Winspit closest to the sea until his death in 1966. Apparently, he also cleared the ledge below my seawatching position as a garden. It has long since become overgrown.
6 Oct 2020
20 Sep 20 - A Long Awaited Dream
It was a long wait to my next Buff-breasted Sandpiper, as I didn't spend a long of time on the Scillies after the mid 80s & I wasn't interested in going a long way to see rarities I had seen before. In 1996, I moved to Dorset & started paying attention to my Dorset list. But circumstances meant I didn't connect with my first Buff-breasted Sandpiper at one of their traditional Dorset sites at White Nothe until Sep 15: in a ploughed field on a high stretch of the Jurassic coastline.
15 Sept 2020
14 Sep 20 - The Changing Faces Of The St Aldhelms Patch
The pressure of work & windy weekends made weekend visits to St Aldhelms in August largely impossible this Autumn. It wasn't until the Bank Holiday weekend, that the pressure of work started reducing back towards normal hours & the weather improved. That provided a chance to get out onto the patch, with the added bonus that I could head out for pre-work visits to St Aldhelms (as far as Trev's Two-barred Greenish quarry). So, far in Sep, I've been able to get out on a bit over half of the weekday mornings, as well as, longer visits at the weekend. But this morning, I'm fogged in with 200 metres visibility in the house. This happened on the 3 Sep, but I went anyway just for the exercise: a couple of miles of exercise with less than 100 metres of visibility & nothing of note seen.
Fortunately, the visibility on other visits has been much better. One of the great things about the St Aldhelms patch is it is a stunningly beautiful site to watch.
Hopefully, the weather will be better tomorrow.
13 Sept 2020
13 Sep 20 - Ticky Tick, Clicky Click Click Click
13 Jul 2020
8 Jul 20 - Socially Distancing Seawatching
From early July, there had been a good feeding party of Balearic Shearwaters feeding off Portland Bill. No surprise about that as July and early August is a good time to see Balearic Shearwaters in Dorset waters. However, the numbers had grown to about seventy which is much higher numbers than normal. On the late evening of the 7 Jul, the Portland Bill Obs website posted photos of a putative Yelkouan Shearwater which had been photographed with the Balearic Shearwaters. There have been a number of reported records in recent years, but only one accepted record of one photographed off Berry Head, Devon on 29 Jul 08. Given the Balearic Shearwater flock was sticking around, then there was a reasonable chance that the putative Yelkouan Shearwater would be relocated. But there wasn't anything I could do, due to a busy set of morning phone calls. Everything changed around mid morning, when I had three rapid calls to my landline from my Plymouth mate Pete Aley. We had already discussed options after the initial posting on the Obs website. I was on a works call with my boss so I couldn't answer any of the calls, but I could tell from the Pete's persistence, it must have been refound & confirmed. A quick check on the RBA website confirmed the fact. There was still nothing I could do until early afternoon, but after that I was free for the rest of the day. As the putative Yelkouan Shearwater was still showing, I asked my boss if I could head off for a few hours & I arrived just after 15:00. I quickly found most people were on the ledge by the Pulpit Rock. Everybody was very close & clearly ignoring the two metre rule. Two of the individuals, Steve Gantlett & Steve Webb, who were still supposed to be in quarantine after visiting Ireland were getting well into huddle. But given they broke Irish & UK quarantine rules, it's no surprise to see them in the huddle. Clearly, twitching in their eyes is as valid a reason to break social distancing rules as driving to Durham with coronavirus & then onto Barnard Castle on your wife's birthday.
I certainly wasn't going to join the crowd. I knew Pete was also following the two metre rule and found him away from the main group. I joined him at a safe distance. There were good numbers of Balearic Shearwaters off the Pulpit Rock, sitting on the sea & occasionally getting up to flying around. Pete had arrived about two hours before me, but hadn't had any sightings. It was time to set up by folding seat, scope & start scanning. After an hour, there had been a few shouts from the throng on the main Pulpit ledge, but we were too far away to have any idea if they were reliable sightings or not or to figure out where they might have been looking.
After about an hour, I picked up a smaller Shearwater sitting on the sea in front of a line of Balearic Shearwaters. It looked consistently smaller and slightly paler brown with a long, slim bill. That was all I could see for the several minutes as it bobbed up & down on the choppy water. I tried giving Pete directions, but unfortunately, he failed to get onto it. Then it flew, briefly circled when I could see a shorter tail, trailing legs & heavy wing moult before flying towards me. I quickly lost it in the scope, so switched to the camera & fired away in the right direction. As it wasn't particularly close, it wasn't too hard to point the camera in the right direction. Fortunately, it continued to fly towards me before banking & finally flying out of shot. The photos aren't great, but they do confirm that I had seen the putative Yelkouan Shearwater.