St Mary's Island Seawatching

After getting up at a mind-boggling 2.15am I finished work at just gone nine so I ambled from the moors to the coast. It was warm and there were light South-westerlies. Not exactly ideal seawatching conditions. Fortunately the heat haze didnt get too bad but it made me jib the only skua of the day up near Blyth. As passage was slow to non-existant I did an obs style count of most stuff except the large gulls, Gannets and Kittiwakes. This mostly comprised of Sandwich Terns tbh. Concentrating on the terns meant I picked up todays stars - an adult and juvenile Roseate Tern which passed over the rocks just in front of me. The same birds were then seen nearly four hours later going past Hartlepool Headland.

Common Tern

Aside from the terns I added a further three patch year ticks with both Peregrine and Heron coming in off with the former attacking the only flock of Common Scoter of the day albeit half heartedly. The final patch year tick was a Red-throated Diver south close in. A good few Cormorants went north and there was a light passage of Swifts south offshore. A family of Common Terns fed around the island for much of the watch but failed to mask a small movement of this species later on. I finished up at half one absolutely shattered.