Wednesday 27 August 2014

Terns


Adult Common Tern - Exmouth Quay.

Funny day today. I did the usual Maer Rocks stint first thing and was very underwhelmed by the numbers of birds on a promising-looking south-easterly. I recorded just c40+ common tern, 1 common scoter, 1 manx shearwater, 1 yellow-legged gull, 1 dunlin and the second-winter little gull. I headed for home a little puzzled but had a quick look off Exmouth Quay where 110+ common tern and 2 knot indicated that I may be missing something. Phonecalls/texts from Mike, Mark, Dave Stone, Dave Hopkins and Lee confirmed that I was indeed missing stuff (namely terns) but family life beckoned and I was tied up for the morning. This afternoon, a further sojourn off the seafront revealed good numbers of common and sandwich tern but surprisingly little else.
Today's totals: Orcombe Point/Maer Rocks - c15+ common scoter, 3+ manx shearwater, c10+ fulmar, 3 teal, 3 little tern, 1+ juv arctic tern, 1 black tern, 1 turnstone, 1 mediterranean gull, 1 juv yellow-legged gull, 1 little gull, 2 arctic skua, 1 dunlin, 6+ wheatear, 3 yellow wagtail, 2 swift, 1 tree pipit and 1 whitethroat.


Juvenile Common Tern - Exmouth Quay.


Adult winter Sandwich Tern - Exmouth Quay.


Common Tern.


Sarnie.


At last a 'proper' Yellow-legged Gull - big and bullish! Chalk and Cheese next to Herring Gulls!




Second-winter Little Gull.


A beautiful little Tree Pipit sheltering from the wind in the corner of one of the top fields.


No comments:

Post a Comment