As I said before in my previous post, the seawatching on PG had whetted my appetite for the 13th August and the start of my weekend on the Isle of Scilly going on a boat hoping for close views of shearwaters, skuas and petrels. Everyday talking to Tom (who had been on the Scillies birder pelagics before) and listening to him tell me what he'd seen from them gave me a huge feeling of anticipation. To add to it, Barry Embling, a good friend of mine from Gloucestershire and Lewis Thomson, one of Barry's, were coming down for the pelagics too.
On the morning of the 13th, I got up, got my stuff packed and headed off for Penzance to get to the quay to catch the Scillonian boat. On the way I received a text from Barry to tell me that he'd been stuck in a traffic jam on the M5 and not moved for 3 hours.... he and Lewis weren't going to make the boat..... disaster..... No number of frantic phonecalls to the ticket office or anywhere else made any difference, they couldn't get their ticket for the boat transferred onto the helicopter or plane as the weather was closing in and all flights had been cancelled.... the only thing they could do was find a place to stay overnight and catch the ferry in the morning and hope they could transfer their pelagic booking to the next day.
That left me on my own.... but as I stood on the quay, feeling pretty gutted for Barry and Lewis (and feeling sorry for myself being on my tod), I spotted a couple of guys with binoculars round their neck, so I thought I'd go and introduce myself so I'd at least have people to talk to on the crossing. It turned out to be Dave and Barry Bradnum, a father and son team who were friends of none other than Tom! After a quick handshake and a chat we boarded the boat and before long we were setting sail.
The crossing was pretty uneventful apart from a rather good bacon and egg roll, a few Manx Shearwater, Storm Petrels and a single Sooty Shearwater to entertain us on the 2 and a half hour crossing, but I did manage to find out that there was going to be a short pelagic going out that night at 5pm which I hadn't known about. With Barry and Lewis stuck on the mainland I thought I'd take the opportunity to go out.... maybe heighten the chances of seeing any of the 'holy grail' species..... Wilson's Storm Petrel or even Fea's Petrel.
After arriving on St. Mary's I wandered up to the camp-site at the Garrison to find a space to pitch the tent, however, when I got up there the site was fully booked...... ah..... should have thought about that! Luckily, a familiar face appeared from around the corner.... Mat Meehan, the Retail Manager at Newport Wetlands. I'd previously met him up on the Blorenge in Gwent twitching the Mamora's Warbler last year, then on another twitch later on in October... the American Robin at Exminster Marshes RSPB. His group were just arriving and we decided to try and get me in with their booking.... thankfully it worked and with the tents put up and another quick meet and greet, we all set off to the quayside for the evenings pelagic.
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| Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) |
As we went out, Bob Flood explained what we were going to do.... steam and chum on the way out to the area known as the 'Wilson's Triangle' - 6-7 miles south of the Scillies - where we would stop the engines and drift, chumming as we went to try and entice the Wilson's Storm Petrel - the target bird of the evening. The steam and chum on the way out did well for picking up gulls and gannets, but it was looking pretty quiet until a Balearic Shearwater was found shearing the waves in our wake, picking up little morsels from the chum.
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| Balearic Shearwater (Puffinus mauretanicus) |
The shearwater gave great views giving us the chance to really get to grips with it's identification pointers, the dusky sides, chin and underwings, more brownish plumage and a more dumpy appearance than the very similar Manx Shearwater. Balearic Shearwaters are a species that are not doing well across the world - in fact they only breed on the Balearic Islands which are an archipelago in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. - as their population has suffered a massive crash mainly from predation from Black Rats and domestic cats. With only an estimated 2,000 pairs left in the world they have been categorized by the IUCN, (International Union for Conservation of Nature), as Globally Critically Endangered. They are seen around the south coast of Britain more frequently due to changing sea temperatures, which has led to Seawatch SW starting up an observation scheme to try to find out more about these birds' movements. Check out their website here.
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| European Storm Petrel (Hydrobates pelagicus) |
After watching the shearwater for a while we eventually made it to our destination out in the middle of the sea. Joe Pender (our skipper) switched of the engines and soon the boat was in a state of drift, rolling over the 2m swell, pitching this way and that. Luckily my sea-legs aren't too bad so I coped pretty well, but for a few on board the movement was a little too much and they were left with heads over the side adding to the chum slick. The chum was attracting the birds though, European Storm Petrels with their highly developed sense of smell (they can smell the chum from 20 miles away!) were floating in, so we hoped it was just a matter of time before a Wilson's showed itself.
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| Wilson's Storm Petrel (Oceanites oceanicus) showing the pale carpal bands. |
Twenty minutes later and the shout from Bob.... ''Wilson's coming in.......'' mass scramble..... everyone poured over to the side of the boat to get a view of the bird and for 15-20 minutes the Wilson's showed fantastically well, at one point coming no more than 4 ft from the back of the boat.... Awesome - a new bird for me and to see it so well, it gave the chance to see the main ID point of this tiny little bird (no bigger than a Swallow) like the pale carpal bands on the top of the wings and even the yellow webbing in between in toes! Superb.
With everyone thoroughly pleased with getting the Wilson's, it was back to base and down to the pub for a couple of celebratory pints and chat about the day and what we could expect from the all-day pelagic in the morning.
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| Wilson's Storm Petrel (Oceanites oceanicus) showing the yellow webbing |
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