two short seawatches

I did two short seawatches today, 45 minutes of my lunch hour between 1330 and 1415 and from 1740-1910 this evening.

At lunch there was lots of gannets and kittiwakes moving but little else, highlights were 1 sooty shearwater and two harbour porpoise, to be honest the light wasn't good.

This evening there were even more kitti's and gannets moving north, the kitti's especially were moving in large groups, occasionally stopping to feed, where they were harassed by two arctic skuas that were hanging about. The numbers were so high I gave up trying to count them. There were hardly any shearwaters this evening, only 6 manx and 1 sooty though at 1815, I had a large shearwater way out on the horizon, which will remain unidentified, I never saw the whole bird, it was low rto the surface, disappearing behind the swell, it was very long winged, but I didn't get much more on it. Highlights this eveing were 1 red-necked grebe on the sea with red-throated divers, 1 pomarine skua and a female scaup.

Totals (lunchtime in brackets)

Gannet - lots (203)
kittiwake - lots (371)
sandwich tern 23 ( 1)
guilliemot 3 (12)
common scoter 75 (9)
fulmar 5 (2)
manx shearwater 6
scaup 1
arctic skua 5
red-throated diver 4
bonxie 1
red-necked grebe 1
pomarine skua 1
auk sp 20 (11)
cormorant 4 (3)
arctic tern 1
goosander 2
sooty shearwater 1 (1)
eider 2
razorbill (2)
harbour porpoise 2

136 scaup
137 red-necked grebe