Thursday, January 28, 2016


In heavy rain, two guillemots were looking a bit miserable in a rather oily corner of the harbour, near the boats the ivory gull liked to perch on last winter.


Two grey wagtails were skipping about on the sloping wall above the beach - my first of the year. But I couldn't hang around because we were going swimming (what better thing is there to do in this weather?)

It's unusual for a village to have a pool - especially a nice, 25-metre pool like this one. We go to the Senior Swim session - it's a bit cheaper, and very quiet and sedate, as you'd expect with us elderly folk. We swam 500 metres, had a sauna, and swam a bit more - a further 250 metres for Greger, just 100 metres for me. Fortunately I can do front crawl, so don't need to do the froggy leg movements of breast-stroke that wouldn't be good for my knee. I've got to get fit somehow if we are to do any hill-walking this summer.

In the afternoon I went back to the harbour, and this time took a walk during a lull in the rain. I found three dead guillemots spaced out on the town beach. This one was the worst as it was freshly dead, and I realised it might be one of the two I snapped earlier (I could only see one there now).


It's not unusual to see the odd dead auk, generally storm-blown, around the coasts of Britain. But with the high numbers of auks (I'm presuming these included guillemots and razorbills along with the little auks) that were swept across the North Sea by easterly winds, I suppose there are bound to be more casualties this year. The Sussex birding site (sos.org.uk) had a report of 40 dead guillemots washing up dead at Eastbourne on 21st January; and I saw a second report of 20 dead guillemots (can't remember where).

Tomorrow, I see, Storm Gertrude will be bringing to Scotland "heavy rains, high winds, snow, and ice". What, all of it?! Gordon Bennett. I think we'll be hunkering down indoors.

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