very tystie

First morning out on the patch for ages! Did a couple of hours seawatching in flat calm conditions for the Seatrack project - still a fair few manxies moving (c. 800 per hour), the majority were going east though, never a good sign! Highlights were 6 arctic terns west, 1 bonxie east and best of all, two black guillemots belting east - not guaranteed on patch so good to bang them in (108).  Oops, forgot to year tick guillemot too so actually 109.

common sand

A common sandpiper at Long Strand this pm was the first sign of waders beginning to move (107).

that'll be cory's on then!

Tried again this morning but still not much of note - 1 arctic skua and 15 storm petrels were both new for the year, while 25 common scoter and 3 bonxies were mere padders.

However, this evening was a completely different story. News of some cory's off Ballycotton late pm dragged me back up to Galley for an hour and half of cory's shearwater flypast action. It was pretty special - out beyond the stream of manx was a stream of cory's! Drifting past in twos and threes at some points, with a load more further out. Some of the nearer ones showed really well - a real bonus after drawing a blank last year! In the end, we reckoned there'd been a minimum of 1,200 cory's past, and they were still going by when I left, although the rate had dropped off. Two sub-adult pomarine skuas just before I left were another bonus, as I missed them last year too (106).

the dugbirds are back!

Gave Galley an hour this evening for the craic, and was duly rewarded with a sooty shearwater (102).  The only other thing of any note was a bonxie. Hope this isn't the shape of things to come! Still, thats the first year tick in about 6 weeks so can't complain!