Okay, as promised, here's what I've been up to for the last few days, namely a three day stint on the east coast, staying in the Ivy Cottage B n B in Flamboro' again and seawatching my bits off with Bazzo and Tropical.
We drove over on Friday morning and when we arrived a good force 5-6 north easterly was blowing, although it was sunny.
You could see for miles.

We scoped the sea for most of the day, with a break for a search through South Landing for migrants which produced a Pied Flycatcher, Lesser Whitethroat, Garden Warbler, Chiffchaffs and Robin.
Two seawatching shifts brought us:

Fulmar 150?
Manx Shearwater 5
Sooty Shearwater 1
Balearic Shearwater 1
Gannet 100s
Guillemot 100s
Razorbill 50+
Common Tern 3
Common Scoter 50+
Wigeon 12
Teal 10
Red Throated Diver 9
Arctic Skua 10
Great Skua 3
Pomarine Skua 1
Kittiwakes 100s

Plus the usual array of gulls, Rock Pipit etc, but it was the Pom that was the star of the show today, tearing into a Kittiwake offshore with all the brutishness and agility the species is famous for.
A stunning bird - surely the best skua? Adult Long Tails may be pretty, but the juvs do seem a bit wimpy - you need a great big bad tempered Pom to quicken the blood, no doubt about it.
The Balearic Shearwater was a surprise, coming in late in the afternoon before briefly settling on the sea, and showing very well.
Tried a few pics of seabirds, but they were tricky, and often distant.

The black and white blur is a Guillemot and the dark brown blob is a juv dark phase Arctic Skua, one of several which rested on the swell,occasionally rising to hassle Kittiwakes.
A good seawatch, although a claim off "gull carrying snake" suggested one of the party may have been staring at the waves for rather too long - my lips are sealed...
We headed back into Flamboro' for the usual beer fuelled debauchery that long ago earned the Marshside crew the alternative moniker of "the unacceptable face of birding"...oh dear.
Unfortunately, the wages of sin are not death, they are in fact fog. Lots of it. This is what we were confronted with at dawn the next morning....

Not even we would try to seawatch in that.
Well actually, we did, but just for an hour, between 7am and 8am.
Three Sooty Shearwaters and two Manxies were our reward.
One huge fry-up later the fog hadn't lifted, so we set off tramping around the hedges and fields of Flamboro' headland in a frankly fruitless seacrh for good migrants - plenty of Meadow Pipits were pouring thro' and we also had Redstart, Garden Warblers, a few Sprawks and Goldcrest among the more usual migrants.
A hard day yomping around fog covered fields for little reward - the Village of the Damned indeed....
Mercifully the fog lifted a bit in the afternoon and we got another long seawatch in. There was very little wind, and conditions were, well, murky at best, but it brightened a bit later.
We had:

Arctic Skua 7
Long Tailed Skua 2
Manx Shearwater 1
Sooty Shearwater 3
Gannet 100s
Fulmar 60
Eider 12
Cormorant 20
Common Tern 1
Sandwich Tern 3
Red Throated Diver 19
Shag 15
Guillemot 50+
Little Tern 1
Common Scoter 1
Great Skua 1

The Long Tails were both juvs, and while it's always great to see this species, youngsters are a bit uninspiring in comparison with the rest of the family.
Then it was out on the town again, trawling the bright lights of Flamboro' Village in our top hats and tails - same end result (sore heads the next morning), only this time we were serenaded by a two piece Abba tribute act.
The whole village turned out for this (it was after all, the social event of the year), and moshed like crazy till the early hours to those crazy Scandanavian rhythms.
What a planet...

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