We had a slow start to the day, spent waiting for a number of checks and biological samples to be taken. We put it all to good use by bringing out blogs up to date!
The weather here is still pretty lousy with strong winds and plenty of showers. We eventually began our first stationary point counts at 2 pm - and need to keep these going every five minutes for the next 25 hours. On the way to the observation point, Mark sees a sooty shearwater - quite an early record for the autumn. It is in the late stages of wing moult; I don't recall seeing moult in a sooty shearwater before.
By the end of our first two hour session, we have seen 12 Cory's shearwaters, including some quite close to the ship. Mark is replaced by Adam, and we see at least as many again, including a group of six, scouring the surface in search of food. All of the birds we have seen well look like the Atlantic race borealis with no indication that any are Scopoli's. By the end of the day, we see a total of 46 Cory's. Superb!
1 comment:
Coooooor! Sounds like a fab trip (apart from the weather, hurumph!). I am just back from the Uists and saw c50 basking sharks over about 10km near Rum... incredible! Hope the weather improves.
Claire xxx
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