Well the albatross didn't show

The Safari is now cured; the physio signed us off this morning which is good, but it did mean that we were at the hospital being 'manipulated' rather than scoping the waves for seabird exotica...that had to wait until lunchtime.

We hope you realise that we weren't really expecting a Black Browed Alabatross to cruise by...but then neither were the birders in Norfolk yesterday! But no matter what is or isn't out there if you don't look you won't see!

So at lunchtime look we did and didn't see much for our troubles.

None of the anticipated skuas, Fulmars, petrels or dodgy gulls put in an appearance. In fact there was little other than a few Common Scoters and commoner gulls. 

The light to the south off us was dreadful in the bright hazy sunshine so we were restricted from straight out west to about NNE where the light was much better. Towards the end of one scan looking almost north we caught a glimpse of a distantish shearwater. With it being at the end of our scan all we got was the back end of it as it looped through the waves - it looked dark rather than the usual contrasting black and white of our Manx Shearwaters but was it a Balearic or a Sooty Shearweater - we'll never know!

No time to look for anything else before it went dark but on the way back to Base Camp we made the mistake of going down the Prom - it's half term and consequently very busy - where we got stuck in traffic between the piers giving the opportunity to look for any Starlings murmurating. We were either a little early in the day or a little early in the season as there were only about 100 or so swirling round and we didn't see any new flocks come over town to join the fun.

Where to next? We've an event to coincide with BBC Autumnwatch tomorrow having a look on the beach for what the storm might have washed up and hopefully we'll get a few pics for you.

In the meantime let us know who avoided full identification in your outback.