Sunday, 23 August 2020

Mwnt seawatch

A very enjoyable morning seawatching at Mwnt with Arfon, Gary and Howard. The highlights came in all shapes and sizes (all heading south):

2 Sooty Shearwaters, Balearic Shearwater, Little Gull (juv), Pomarine Skua, 4 Storm Petrels, Yellow-legged Gull (juv), Ocean Sunfish and a Minke Whale (about 30 metres offshore!).

To add to this; there was really quite incredible wader passage with 646 Dunlin, 117 Oystercatchers, 17 Turnstone, 11 Ringed Plovers, 15 Sanderling, 2 Redshank and 4 of each Knot and Whimbrel heading south.

Other counts of interest included 126 Common Scoter, 159 Sandwich Terns (including an individual with a GPS tag/data logger on its back), 2 Arctic Terns, 4 Arctic Skua, 2 Bonxies, 41 Med Gulls and what must have been 50+ Shags (including a bird with a red/orange ring with white lettering). 

Full counts: https://www.trektellen.nl/count/view/2445/20200823