Today was the day that I had planned a Portland Trip for the first time since late September last year. I had needed to do a few errands on the Isle of Portland and had originally planned to walk the South West Coast Path from Southwell to the Bill in search of Balearic Shearwaters a species that I had never managed to see in the UK, however upon waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of a Police Helicopter circling low over my building I checked my phone to see that a Yelkouan (To spare me trying to spell it again it will now be called Yelk through the rest of the post) Shearwater had been accidently found in the Balearic flock that had been feeding off the bill. So, I decided to set my alarm for an earlier time in order to give my self the best possible chance of seeing both species. This morning was interesting and lead to me leaving much later than I had originally anticipated. But with no sign for several hours before I arrived, I decided that I would stick with my original plan to walk the South West Coast path from Southwell. At 10:30 all my errands had been completed so I set out down the coast towards the bill. As soon as I had made it onto the path, I spotted a pair of Peregrines monitoring my every movement from their perches. Marbled White butterflies were everywhere in the path side vegetation along with Meadow Brown, Large White and also a few Gatekeepers. Above: Peregrine Moving further along the coast path was full of Rock Pipit families calling from every cliff face and quarry I passed. They must have had a great breeding season. Linnet and Goldfinch were also numerous and the sound of Meadow Pipits & Skylarks filled the air from the nearby fields. On the sea it was relatively quiet at this stage however the first Manx Shearwater of the day headed West as several Gannets Cruised the same way. Above: Rock Pipits As the weather slowly improved more and more of the sea could be seen appearing from under the mist and eventually the sight of Portland Lighthouse and the Observatory came into view. Even from my distance of half a mile away a crowd of telescopes and twitchers could be seen all there readily scanning the sea for that potential rarity. Sure, enough by the time I had arrived the bird had been and gone. It was the usual you should have been here 5 minutes ago that rang round the birders. Now I have to admit I was a little worried to join the crowd, but by enlarge birders were sticking to the two-metre social distancing rule. I guess it becomes instinct after a while to keep a distance from people as its now just something you do automatically, however honestly it was better to be away from certain individuals anyways. When I arrived, I scanned over the incredibly calm English Channel and was rewarded with my first tick of the day as there was a flock of around 60 Balearic Shearwaters doing a mixture of feeding, resting and doing what shearwaters do best. There must have been 100 odd Gannet milling around along with 100s if not 1000s of Large Gulls. After a while I was put onto a bird that was notably different from the Balearics, but I wasn’t overly convinced my self that it was the right bird just having locked at the moult in the wings. At the time I presumed it was a Manx Shearwater, however the person that was 2 metres to my right posted the pictures of the bird that is now being questioned as a 2nd Yelk Shear. Still not overly convinced myself, but we shall see what happens with that one. Above: The massive feeding flock containing Gannets, Large Gull sps, Manx shears, and Balearic Shears (Balearics are the ones that appear more dusky all over) I then moved position to where Sam and Dan had set themselves up. A flock of 26 Common Scoter streamed through heading East, but otherwise very little happened for a while. Then out of nowhere a boat appeared and headed straight for the mixed flock of Gannets, Shearwaters, and Gulls. It for some reason ploughed straight through the middle of this feeding frenzy, however this worked in our favour, as the ‘real’ Yelk Shearwater was pushed incredibly close into where we were standing, meaning that Sam managed to rattle of some incredible photos of the bird. Initially it sat on the right-hand end of a small flock of Balearics. It was noticeably smaller and had a noticeably paler face. Once the boat had come closer it took flight with the flock showing the wing moult, the trailing legs, and the murky white body from tail to beak. Now I have to admit after this boat had gone through the flock the wind started to pick up creating quite a bit of wave action and the combination of this and not being able to hold my scope straight lead to this being the last time, I actually saw the bird. It was an incredible but brief experience. Above: Sam Vile's photos of the bird as didn't manage any... (The Yelk is the right hand most bird in all the above photo's) I stuck around for a bit longer general sea watching in anticipation of the Yelk coming back in. This led to another flock of Common Scoter heading E, 2 Kittiwake heading W (Sorry Arjun), 20 or so Guillemot visiting the local colony, 2 or 3 Razorbill flying around and perhaps the highlight was when a dark Morph Arctic Skua came in and started to harass the gulls. Incredible! And while all this was happening several incredibly tame Ravens flew in looking for any scraps that we may have left behind, hopefully they didn’t spot my bagel! Above: Some photos of the other Shearwaters. The Balearics are the ones that appear to be more dusky underneath and are in wing moult the Manx are the ones that have paler undersides as well as the white leading further up to the head and are mostly not in wing moult. Below: A Gannet and Gull feast along with the odd shearwater mixed in... Above: Common Scoter Below: Kittiwake Above: Arctic Skua being mobbed by Herring Gulls Below: One of the Portland Ravens it was so close that my camera struggled to focus on it After this I decided that I would head back along the South West Coast path to retrace my steps back to Southwell. Along the way I spoke to quite a few people that were intrigued as to what had been seen off the bill and its this sort of public engagement that I love doing. Its why when I am at home, I spend a lot of time volunteering for various organisations and it was great to be doing this again restoring a sense of normality in a far from normal time. Hopefully soon we will be back at Rainham Marshes one can only hope. I hadn’t gone very far, when I spotted some bird watchers looking into one of the quarries near the Observatory. To my surprise they were looking at a Little Owl roosting outside its nest hole. Its beady eyes looked up at us as we looked down at it, but eventually we decided to move on. One the sea another Manx Shearwater headed West and plenty more Gannets could be seen. There was also a noticeable movement of Swallow and Swift out to sea now and therefore unfortunately signally the ever-nearing end to summer and the beginning of Autumn. Moving further along the coast path just before Southwell I noticed a family looking at something on the ground, I was surprised to find them looking at a Rose Chafer. Since it was in the middle of the path and not looking great, I decided to pick it up carefully and move it onto a nearby rock. It was great to see just how interest this family was in this Rose Chafer as to them it was this miraculous iridescent Green Beetle that they had never seen before and admittedly its not a bad thing to find especially when you consider that there isn’t much wood around on Portland for the Larva to feed on. (would be interesting to find out if they can use the wood from fence posts to lay their eggs in). Also, whilst I was talking to them, I noticed out of the corner of my eye something fly in and however next to me. To my surprise I turned to find a Hummingbird Hawkmoth. It lingered for a few minutes feeding on the flowers that lined the cliff top and allowing the family another chance to see some incredible wildlife that lives on their doorstep. Above: Rose Chafer Below: Hummingbird Hawk-moth Finally, right at the end of the South West Coast path I was pleased to see the Peregrines were still about calling to one another as they went. And so that brought to an end an incredible day on Portland. I have to admit that it was well worth parking in Southwell rather than driving all the way to the bill as without that I wouldn’t have been able to see all the extra wildlife… Above: Peregrine And so, I headed home after a long and exhausting day and so providing the Yelk shearwater is accepted by the British Rarity committee, a rare, two lifer day sees my British List up to 234 and my year list which I have debated abandoning due to the situation we find our selves in moves up to 160 with all the seabird additions. Honestly there are a few species that I would normally have seen by now that I am really missing and that is Sedge Warbler, Grasshopper Warbler and Whinchat. I still haven’t seen any of those this year. Also, Whimbrel is another on of those ‘easy’ birds missing. Just before I sign off this blog post I wanted to give some context to the rarity level of the Yelk shearwater. Yelk Shears are normally found in the Mediterranean and are rarely found outside their range. I have had a history with this species and dipped out on seeing them when in Menorca a few years back which is a shame. To show the extent of the rarity this species has only one previous accepted record in the UK with one in 2008 seen on a sea watch. Any rare seabird is exceptional especially when they linger and in this case for more than one day! Thank you to Sam Vile's for use of his photo's in my blog. Below is a link to his twitter page:
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AuthorI have been a birder since I was 8 however only really started to be able to go out to places by myself in Summer 2016 (Blame the parents) My blogs will be from all over the place, but mainly from RSPB Rainham Marshes and Totteridge Valley! Photography done by Samuel Levy aged 20. ArchivesCategories |