Skuas, Huttoft Bank

 

Our first stop of the day was Seaview Farm on the Lincs coast where Simon soon had our first Pied Flycatcher of the autumn found so the day was off and running. The noise of a delivery of logs to the new holiday cottage soon put paid to birding on this lane so we headed to Rimac to look at nowt ! 

Next stop was Huttoft Bank to seawatch as the tide came in at 4pm. A brilliant few hours with Arctic, Long Tailed, Great and Pom Skuas passing. A guillemot sat on the sea with the occasional head of a seal popping up. A marsh harrier flew out to sea and didn't return ! Hundreds of sandwich terns that never stopped. 

Looking at the sea has made me long to go on another cruise and get me posh frocks out ! So already got an Alaska and beyond cruise priced up, and bird list printed ! 

Black-browed Albatross and Great Skua, Bempton Cliffs

 

A close up of the brow and yes, it really was this close !

Although we had seen the albatross at Bempton, we had to have another trip as we had yet to see it fly! So yesterday afternoon we headed to Bempton. Not too many cars in the car park which was good. Lots of birders leaving saying it hadn't flown all morning. Would we be lucky? So headed off to the viewpoint with the small crowd and waited. We could see it on the cliffs with the gannets and then all of a sudden it disappeared......eyes peeled!  And there it was, souring below us, the views were amazing. It flew out to sea and landed on the water, a dot on the sea and we thought that would be the last we would see of it. Wrong !  It was soon airborne again only now it was being pursued by a Great Skua ! Although they didn't come close it was fabulous to see the two birds together. The skua was eventually on it's way and the albatross flew in close again, eye level height and so close. An amazing afternoon. 

Here trying to escape from a great skua

A fantastic afternoon at Bempton, a good crowd and a catch up with folk we haven't seen for years !

Mallaig to Muck and Eigg and back !

Black Guillemots 

1000's of Manx Shearwaters, they were everywhere and it was a fantastic sight to see. 

and a single Bonxie

We had a week on Ardnamurchen before we headed to Mull and decided to take one of the ferrys around the small islands for the day. So we set sail from the port of Mallaig on one of the CalMac ferries, calling at Muck and Eigg. The sailing took the best part of the day and was just £10 for a ticket, excellent value for money. We did choose the day carefully weatherwise but we still had rain (but a calm sea!). Shearwaters were absolutely everywhere, thousands and thousands of them. Black guillemots were in all the harbours, but we had plenty of  arctic terns, fulmers, razorbills, puffins,  kittiwakes, gulls and a couple of skua. Common seals lounged on all the rocks. An excellent day.