Time: 0600 - 1500
Weather: Sunny spells.
Wind: WNW (F4) (am) then WSW(F4-5) (pm)
Great Skua - 6
Arctic Skua - 9 (1J, 2P, 6D)
Pomarine Skua - 2 (1J, 1P (with spoons))
Long Tailed Skua - 1 (J)
Mediterranean Gull - 3 (1stW)
Sandwich Tern - 18
Comic Tern - 1
Common Scoter - 31 (5F, 26M)
Knot - 7
Common Porpoise - showing well all session
Common Dolphin - c.10
[Well we didn't expect an all 4 Skua day following yesterday's hard work session and by 0930 it was looking a bit grim for Chris G and myself - total tally by then being just 1 Arctic, 1 Bonxie, 2 Scoter and 1 Sandwich Tern!
It was then that I spotted a very distant Skua (at a bearing of "1 o'clock") which appeared to be "dip feeding". After a few minutes of watching I was convinced this was a Long Tailed - based on size and dip feeding action. Well long story short we were still watching this Juv Long Tailed at 1145 - at a bearing of "11 o'clock". The bird had been in view for over 2 hours and was dip feeding with short rests on the deck for all of that time - it was not in a rush! By now it was just beyond the tide race and showing really well. This was a very pale individual and almost white on the underside. I have seen many Long Tails with a few dip feeding just fleetingly but this 2+ hour show was fantastic.
While watching the Long Tailed we had both Poms fly through the same scope view as well as 3 Bonxies, 4 Arctics and the Sandwich Terns even mobbed the Long Tailed. A great 2 hours!]
