Rough weather

We have spent three days trying to get the best out of some pretty dire weather conditions. A low pressure system has brought some strong, mainly westerly winds through most of the UK. With the wind in this sector, the Northumberland coast is quite sheltered, and we find that the sea has flattened out.

On Wednesday we managed to follow a few birds, including a complete fishing trip for a common and an Arctic tern. This is pretty amazing given that the wind is blowing about force 4.

On Thursday, with the wind more firmly in the west, affording maximum shelter, we go out for about six hours. We try to follow birds with little success. We manage reasonably well for a while, then the bird turns across the wind, and the strong gusts whip spray across the boat, in our faces and obscure our view at critical times when we need to keep track of the bird. We try to follow a couple of roseate terns, but lose them each time. We do at least follow one as far as a feeding aggregation, less than 1km from the island.

We give up on this and try to spend a bit of time trying to track radio-tagged birds. This shouldn't be affected too much by the wind. Researchers from Newcastle University have tagged six more Arctic terns at the colony. We cannot detect three of those newly tagged birds, but #12 is still present from the previous tagging, and has chicks. We resolve to try and follow this bird to its feeding area. Somehow or other we cannot detect the difference between a bird at the colony and when it is flying away, and we miss #12's departure. Two hours later, and the bird has not returned to the nest.

We give up and return to harbour a couple of hours early. Somewhat discouraging, but we can't help the weather.