Tuesday 19 July 2011

Autumn has come early! 19/7/11

My first post for quite a while now so I thought I had to write about St. Mary's. I started in the south bay, watching plenty of juvenile sandwich terns on the rocks, still yet to add roseate tern to me life list so this year I am especially looking out for them. I went for a walk around the lighthouse and came across some very unexpected visitors. I was watching the golden plover through my scope when I spotted a bigger wader in amongst the very smart-looking dunlin and turnstone, it was a red knot in fantastic summer plumage! Much bigger than all the others and very unexpected. There was also some very early summer-plumaged sanderling on the rocks as well. Just the purple sandpipers to come now! I left the island as the tide was coming in and did my first proper sea-watching session from the car-park. From 17:00 to 17:30 I saw: 25 Manx Shearwater, 4 Gannet, 12 Kittiwake and 15+ Sandwich Tern. Not bad for my first time and still early in the year so more to come yet!

Dunlin Knot, Dunlin and Sanderling

1 comment:

  1. Very nice pic of the three waders together Jack. Those summer plumage Knot are something to behold.
    I've just come back from an unsuccessful Terek Sandpiper chase at Holywell! Cheers Brian.

    ReplyDelete