Christine's walking & birds blog

The strong southeasterly winds continue, and along Shore Street were two fugitives from the storms - a stonechat foraging on both beach and road, and a red-breasted merganser.

The poor shot (excuse alert - into the sun and heaving sea!) of the merganser is interesting because it shows (probably) that its prey was a scorpion fish. The next moment the merganser had dived, as a trio of gulls swooped to pinch its meal. They didn't succeed, but I'm not sure if the merganser did either, as it resurfaced a few seconds later without the fish. A third year tick was obtained along Shore street as a wren hopped about among the tables opposite the Arch Inn.