I've never suffered from wibbly wobbly, "up-comes-yer-brekkie-and-over-the-side-it-goes" seasickness, so I count myself lucky - no my "mal de mer" is more an inability to stop staring at vast birdless sections of the Irish Sea for long periods when the winds and tides are right.
Like the last two days.
Don't get me wrong, there are few more pleasant places to sit than a dune above the white noise of the surf, while the warm August sun beats down, but it doesn't pull in the pelagics, it has got to be said.
I don't ask for much, a badass Pom barrelling in over the horizon - or a skua of any denomination for that matter - would have been fine, but I lucked out both today and yesterday, even with Bazzo scouring the tide with me at Formby Point.
For what it's worth, here's what I saw:
Formby Point, 11.8.10, 11am-1.15pm:
Manx Shearwater 455
Gannet 80
Great Crested Grebe 1
Common Scoter 50+
Kittiwake 4
Sandwich Tern 100+
Common Tern 57
Arctic Tern 5
Formby Point, 12.8.10, 10.35am-1pm:
Manx Shearwater 40
Gannet 30
Great Crested Grebe 3
Common Scoter 30
Kittiwake 3
Sandwich Tern 75
Common Tern 60
A nice passage of Manxies early doors yesterday certainly, but as soon as the sun came out, the seabirds swerved back out of the shallows to arc distantly over the shimmering jelly horizon - I'm sure they can see the sand dunes shining white in the sun and it puts them off.
Anyway, there's always the next tides (time to pray for filthy weather).
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies...
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Hi John,
Like you we thought the conditions were ideal for a spot of sea watching yesterday 12th, we arrived about ninish and spent the first half hour with our backs to the torrential rain - theres not much shelter in them sand-hills! We were a bit further up the coast from you near the squirrel reserve and apart from the usual cormorants and waders we saw only a handful of gannets and about 30 terns! I can understand why after a session like we had yesterday newcomers would walk away and vow never to set sight of the sea again! P.S. I was going to write this last night but it would have just been a list of curses and expletives!!!
You got it all wrong - spent last night on gatewarth overlooking Richmond Bank on the Widnes side for the Perseid meteor shower...
So, when it was cloudless it was great, unfortunately this was between 3 and 4 am...
The river rushed in like a tidal wave around the 1:30 mark, we heard Whimbrel and Greenshank moving through and where accompanied by a late calling Grasshopper warbler from around 2am 'til dawn.
Canalside we had Daubentons, high flying N...octules and both Pips, whilst a distant calling Tawny 'keewicked' in the night.
Meteors - how do you describe those? - you really had to be there, short blasts of magnesium like light and long blue dust trailing plumes, a naturalistic firework display and to bed at 5:30am - extra-ordinary encounters indeed...
For hundreds of hours in the 1970s and 80s, I had exactly the same experience at Formby Point as John Edwards.
Decent wader roost at Birkdale Green Beach this afternoon, including c. 1800 Sanderling, fresh in from Greenland and Canada!
I am currently watching a nest of young Sparrowhawks about to fledge the nest, not bad for my living room window in Norris Green.