The Safari is over the moon! This our 500th post - never knew we could rite so much rubbish! And no we didn't get any cetaceans although you'd have thought one would have put in an appearance at about 5.00pm when the news broke that Blackpool had won their first game in the Premiership away from home 4 - 0!!!!!! Thus they are now top of the league, a position they haven't enjoyed since 29th August 1957, or exactly 1 year and 364 days before we were born. We are well happy, although Everton lost their opening game...doh can't have everything.
No Patch 1 today our first jaunt was to the coast for the Watch.
The watch today was hard work...with very little happening, the light NNE breeze made the sea very watcheable but kept any seabirds well offshore even beyond the range of our scopes at this elevated height.
A lot of Common Scoters were strung out in an enormously long line of well over a mile or more but only a few birds wide, total number...somwhere in excess of 2500.
A Grey Seal was close to them at a good distance, but we wee to see more during the watch.
30 Swallows winged low over Pipit Slab (immediatly below us) going northwards and others were constantly passing in odds n sods occassionally building into reasonable sized flocks including some seen way out to sea over the bay.
The afternoon was warm and sunny but up on the cliff a jacket was still required in the breeze - everyone walking past was in t-shirts on the best day of the month so far.
So warm was it that we had two Peacocks and a White sp flutter by.
One of the flurries of Swallows contained two House Martins and a Pied Wagtail went over.
Sighting of the afternoon was a Grey Seal that drifted along on the high tide only a few yards off the wall. We had eight sightings of Grey Seal but that might only have been as few as two individuals.
A further two Pied Wagtails went past, almost landing on Pipit Slab. A dark duck floating past was revealed as an Eider, our first of the autumn. Finally we had a good flock of noisy Turnstones went southwards, about 100 of them.
Thus ended the penultimate watch.
Where to next? Back to Balearic Shearwater land/sea at South Beach for the final watch...flat calm sea brim full with Porpoises please.
In the meantime let us know what's floated past the cliffs in your outback.
2 comments:
Too bad you didn't get a single cetacean for your count - at least the weather is taking a turn for the better!
I guess you're going to have to get back to coming up with some creative blog titles again.
2500 Common Scoters, 500 posts on the Outback Safaris & Blackpool win 4-0 away from home, I'm not sure which is the more remarkable, although I must say the latter was a bit of a shock. Congrats on your milestone, looking forward to reading the next 500.
Cliff
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