I started out at St Aldhelms in a North West wind that was at the limited of whether it was worth continuing or not. A Wheatear by the car park convinced me to continue. As I reached the open barn, I had a call from local Birder, Nick Hopper: which I assumed meant he had just found or heard of something good in Poole Harbour. I was half right: Nick said there had been a strong movement of around seven hundred Great Shearwaters East past Portland Bill that morning in thirty minutes. I had a fast eight minute walk back to the car. But I still had to get to Durlston, not helped by a bin lorry who saw me & then moved to block the road for several minutes. I then had another twelve minute walk from just outside the park to the seawatch hide. Local Swanage Birder, Rob Johnson was already there as he only had to drive from his house. He had seen three Great Shearwaters about fifteen minutes earlier, but it turned out they were the Tail End Charlies. Three hours later, I gave up having seen ten Manxies and another thirty or so small Shearwaters that were too far out to identify. But were most likely more Manxies, with maybe the odd Balearic Shearwater among them. The only consolation was had I walked without stopped to the coastguards lookout at St Aldhelms, I would probably have still been too late arriving at the sea. Had I stayed at home & waited for the right tide at Brands Bay I would have seen some Great Shearwaters.
On the way back to the car, I stopped to photograph two showy introduced Wall Lizards on the Durlston Castle walls. They were scant compensation for missing the Great Shearwaters. Who could have predicted this unprecedented movement on a noticeable North West wind. I tried the following morning as the wind hadn't dropped, but had gone around to the South West. A dark phase Arctic Skua was the avian highlight. But the pre-dawn breakfast was worth it, for a cracking Bluefin Tuna which breached five times when I was looking through the scope at the sea from mid-distance. My first mainland Bluefin Tuna & obviously a nice Purbeck Tick.
