Sunday, July 23, 2023

 Two Manx shearwaters were seen from the ferry, an hour into the crossing.


Greger had, once again, suggested I do a pelagic. He was fed up with sitting at home convalescing and fancied doing one of his drives over east to do the shopping, to the accompaniment of an Agatha Christie audiobook in Spanish - "Muerte en el Nilo". This meant a real rush to get ready, but at least the ferry leaves an hour later on Sundays and I did get a lift down to the terminal.

On the far side of the Minch I finally got a place on the port side rail (the decks were very busy) and thought I was prepared for action - but a sudden movement of Manx shearwaters ahead still took me by surprise as they flew towards and in front of the ferry. By the time I snapped this picture, loads of them had already passed out of sight.


 At Stornoway, a common tern fed a fledgling on the dockside. 



As we left Stornoway the flock of shearwaters appeared to have split up, with some on the wing feeding; others were settled on the water below a bunch of wheeling gannets - although the glare of the sun in that direction made it impossible to get any record shots. Despite intense concentration, once we had left this obviously rich feeding area, I had no further sightings of interest.

// posted by Christine @ 3:37 PM
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