Sooty Saturday

Saturday was like the calm before the storm. I should've had some nets up on Saturday morning, but didn't. I had a couple of nets up on Friday evening and only caught a single wren, the bushes were empty. Which didn't inspire me to bust-a-gut on Saturday.

I had a look around the patch at lunchtime. The bushes were still quiet. A couple of chiffs on the path to the hides with the tit flock was a highlight. There were no waders at all on the big pool and only a couple of curlews on the Budge (that were visible). Lots of moorhens though, at least 15.

One of  the many moorhens

I had a scout around the bushes to the north and a quick look offshore. A harbour porpoise loitered just offshore and there were 14 sanderling on the beach.

This dunnock loitered in the 'Druridge Bushes'

I returned for last-gap seawatch before dusk. 1820-1920 after reports of skuas and sabine's gulls further south. It started quietly. Plenty of gannets on the horizon and few kitti's.

Then I got onto a sooty shearwater, about half way out, flying north. It's been a good autumn so far for sooties, so about time I connected with one. I had another sooty north and a distant skua going south which remained other unidentified.

The light got the better of me by twenty-past-seven, so I headed home, happy with my soooties.

The storm that was forecasted for today didn't seem as bad as the weathermen predicted, though it was very windy. So no birding for me, instead I spent the day preserving garden and foraged produce.

147 sooty shearwater