Sea Watch

I tried an hour of sea watching again this morning. The weather was warm and bright with a slight westerly so I didn't expect to see anything extraordinary, and once again my expectations weren't exceeded :)

A Buzzard drifting along the cliff top was a sight I didn't expect! Lovely, especially with the morning sun on its wings.

Then a pair of Stonechat landing on the fence while I was on my way to the cliff top brightened up the morning too...

A Whitethroat was chattering away at me as I passed but I didn't care - I carried on and tried to ignore it.

I sat down on my tripod stool and set up the scope so I could see the sea without any long grass interfering with my view and waited for anything to pass by.

Time.

Time passed by. As it does, and as I expected really. Herring Gulls, Cormorants, Black-headed Gulls...and then the hoped-for sound of a Sandwich Tern :) Marvellous, just the best thing ever when your target bird shows up. 12 of them landed on the tide line (ebb tide) and a few more were fishing further out.

Sandwich Terns on the beach

Poor quality pics as they were taken with the phone camera through the scope. I always expect a better image quality, but as I don't use a gadget to attach the camera to the scope I can't expect any better.

I watched as a few Cormorants flew through then I followed one with the bins and it landed on the large buoy to stretch and dry its wings. I often see them perched on the buoys but this is the first time I've seen one actually land there.

Cormorant drying its wings

I will get a thingy to attach to the scope eventually though. I have one from the early days of digiscoping circa 2006 (and it's a Kowa to match my scope too) but the quality has always been disappointing.

Along with the usual and expected birds I saw 3 Common Scoter flying South. A sign of things to come when Autumn migration gets underway properly.

One final wildlife event to mention and for me it's a biggee - I saw a dolphin or porpoise today!!!!!!!!  Yes. A real life cetacean off Hornsea. No photos to prove it, but it breached a few times as I watched through the scope. Got the phone onto video and recorded through the scope for ages but it never came up again in the area I was watching.

So, copy that if you want, anyone from Hornsea who's reading this!?! Go out and look and try and get a photo before I do. There's a challenge for you...but remember, I saw one first even though I haven't made it known on "mainstream" media ha ha ha :(