I was fortunate to see one of the Manx feeding events yesterday morning
It being low tide (about 09:00), I checked the
gull roost on Borth beach on my way and on the fortunately empty beach was
pleased to see 3 Med gulls (all still with the black hood) amongst the Herring
and Black-headed.
On to the Brickhouse at Ynyslas and immediately
I noticed large rafts of Shearwaters spread across the sea with hundreds of
other Manx streaming past. Just offshore at the Dyfi mouth thousands of Manx
were feeding together with good numbers of Gannets and Kittiwakes. The prey
seemed to be gradually moving inshore as the birds followed it with eventually
the Kittiwakes feeding in the surf.
I estimated there were around 500 Kittiwakes,
50 Gannets and 20k Manx (a very rough guess) and plenty of the local Herring
Gulls and Black-backs.
Of other birds, only a single Sandwich Tern and
a single Med Gull flew south. Oddly I saw no Scoter on the sea (there were
plenty around last week).
Keith Worden