Saturday, October 03, 2020
It's wet and dreary today, so I've salvaged something I left in draft on 24th September and then deleted because of the poor pictures. But it was a beautiful, sparkling day spent on the ferry (our first "pelagic" since September last year), and I don't want to forget it.
We had to mask-up in the terminal and inside the ferry, but once out on the deck we could take the masks off. As we passed the last of the Summer Isles a flurry of wings revealed two white-tailed sea eagles sparring with a black-backed gull on Priest Island.
As we drew closer to land, I pointed out a large gathering of seabirds in the distance and said I would just shoot into the crowd and see if I could see any whales. This is hugely cropped.
The trouble is, when Greger called out "There is a whale out there!" I wasn't on that part of the throng - and instead of putting the camera down and looking with bins, I carried on madly clicking away and then found I hadn't followed the main mass of birds; Greger called out again "There it is!" but I didn't see it and I didn't pick it up on any of the shots! And then it was too late - the ferry continued to head determinedly for Stornoway as the ferry is naturally bound to do, the seabirds were left far behind, and I collapsed on the rail, cursing my clumsiness. Greger felt that it wasn't a minke he'd seen, and when someone later told us that a humpback whale had been out there he thought that made sense.
It was a very short turnaround on the Isle of Lewis and we sat on the big boulders by the harbour and ate our lunch before re-embarking. I began to see skuas on the return journey, but none of them came close. Bonxies were fairly easy to recognise at a distance, but once again I'm not sure if I snapped pomarine or Arctic skuas.
Most of the other observers on deck were more interested in cetaceans than birds, so I was left in peace to try and work avian matters out for myself. Once again I failed to see any storm petrels, and although last year I spotted my first Manx shearwater, these (and other shearwaters) were also absent today as far as I was concerned. Compensation of a sort came in the sight of several flocks of migrating pink-footed geese, straggling and bunching high across the blue sky to the north and south - and in the many common dolphins seen on both the outward and return journeys.
We left the ferry exhausted but felt it had been a worthwhile trip on a lovely day - although as we filed out of the boat I remarked to Greger that if anyone came up to me now and said "Did you see the storm petrels?" I would probably kill 'em.
// posted by Christine @ 7:21 AM 
