Graham's Birding Blog: 9 Oct 13 - Pelagic and Sora sojourn

Wednesday, 9 October 2013

9 Oct 13 - Pelagic and Sora sojourn

I went on the pelagic out of St. Mary's today. There wasn't large numbers of anything, but there was quite a bit of variety. The best bird was a Grey Phalarope that flew around the boat and landed on the water for a while. A Red-necked Grebe on the way out of The Scillies and a summer-plumaged Great Northern Diver were also pretty good to see. Seabirds were hard to come by, but 4 Balearic, 1 Sooty and 6 Manx Shearwaters, 12 Bonxies and 4 small skuas were all seen from the boat. There was a constant following of gulls behind the boat, attracted by the chopped-up Pollock. Yellow-legged, Lesser-black-backed, Herring, Great-black-backed, Black-headed, Mediterranean Gull and Kittywake were all seen.

On the way back the boat skipper, Jo Pender dropped us off on Tresco so that we could go and see the Sora which had been found whilst we were on the pelagic. The Sora showed pretty well, although I wasn't very popular when I dropped radio on the floor whilst trying make some room for others to see the bird. It landed on the floor with a loud 'crack' and the Sora hot-tailed it back into the thick cover of the reads. Thankfully, it was only the photographers who were at the front of the hide, so I didn't feel too embarrassed. It makes a change for a birder to scare a bird that photographers are watching, rather than the other way round.