Pom

The very first bird I saw when I peered through the scope, at 0610 this morning, was a fully-spooned pale phase Pomarine Skua. My first in a long while. It had been reeled in by a large group of Kittiwakes and other gulls, feeding around a small fishing boat off Orcombe Point. A few minutes later and three Arctic Skuas lifted off the sea and joined the fun. Minutes later a further four skuas headed south. All very distant but they looked good for Poms so a minimum of 7 skuas present this morning. Otherwise, on a fifty minute watch - 6 Teal, 2 Canada Geese, 4 Common Scoters and 9+ Sandwich Terns. The feeding flock dispersed and it quickly became very quiet. Orcombe Point itself was pretty birdless with 1 Tree Pipit, 1 Meadow Pipit, 2 Great Spotted Woodpeckers and a juvenile Peregrine the only things of note.

Off Mudbank - c460 Mallard, 22 Mute Swans and 17 Black-tailed Godwits. Yesterday off there - 1 Black-tailed Godwit, 1 Dunlin, 2 Wigeon, c170 Mallard, 6 Great Crested Grebes, 1 Common Gull and a juvenile Mediterranean Gull. On Orcombe Point - 1 Tree Pipit, 3 Willow Warblers, 2 Sand Martins and the breeding male Cirl Bunting that was singing away happily.