Wednesday 17 July 2019

Manx Shearwater sightings

I was interested to read John Davis's descriptions of manxie sightings off Borth.

On Monday last (15th July), I was returning from Dublin on the afternoon Stena ferry. From about half way across the Irish Sea, we passed through what seemed to be an endless stream of shearwaters heading south towards the tip of Llyn and Cardigan Bay. Numbers easily ran into the thousands. The 'conveyor belt' only seemed to stop when the ferry was a couple of miles west of South Stack.


Dave Thomas

Every year at this time we Ceredigion birders hope to find the huge flocks of manxies which occur in some years in Borth Bay.  
Dave's email reminded me of a talk at a WOS conference which was illustrated with charts showing large numbers of manxies from Skomer using the northern and western Irish Sea for feeding, particularly the area between Dublin and Dundalk.