I finished work earlier today and therefore managed to get down to Splash by midday joining Richard and Frank. We left together at 2.30pm having seen a nice Pomarine Skua and a few other bits. After my step dad duties of the school run I quickly got back down seawatching again where Gary and myself enjoyed a very productive four hour seawatch. After my second scan a superb group of 4 Poms flew quite close in heading slowly east and were by far the best 'flock' I've seen this season. With regards to Poms there was one more distant bird and then the group of four that had been tracked all the way from Hampshire, Selsey, Goring & Shoreham, and I had almost given up on them when thankfully they came in and landed straight out from us. There was also a surprisingly good number of Manx Shearwaters despite very few in the past week. With NW winds dominating from now it feels as if the Pom season is very much over (no doubt a couple more will trickle through) and therefore it was good to end on a high, and having seen 69 Poms.
Earlier totals on Richard's blog.
Totals between 4pm-8pm W SE 2-3:
Commic Tern - 120
Pomarine Skua - 9 (4 l/p @16.04, 1@ 16:45, 4 @ 19.58 containing 2 dark phase)
Whimbrel - 3
Common Scoter - 2
Arctic Skua - 14
Manx Shearwater - 20 (biggest group being 5)
Sanderling - 3
Dunlin - 3
Bar-tailed Godwit - 35
Red-throated Diver - 1
