Wednesday 6 January 2016

Coastal walk - St Brides to Little Haven

A 7 km walk along the coast path revealed not less than 15 GN Divers feeding or resting offshore between Stack rocks and Borough Head (all were within the ellipse on the map below). Some appeared to be in pairs, the largest single "loose" flock feeding quite close together was four off Borough Head. Although only seen from a distance, those observed with food appeared to be mainly catching small fish, unlike the individuals recently seen feeding off Whitesands that at the time were mainly catching crabs and molluscs.
None of the divers seen were particularly close in, all being at least c. 400 to c. 700 metres offshore




In addition, there were also a couple of red-throated divers feeding a few hundred metres offshore in the same zone and another one off the Point at Little Haven. A flock of at least 700+ BH gulls (feeding inland) landed briefly on the sea to bathe before heading off back in land again. Only one definite Med gull was seen in the flock on the water, but most likely there were others. The view of the flock was not great; looking directly into bright sun-lit water at fairly distant birds made it difficult to be certain.

There was no sign of the grey phalarope at St Brides this morning when we looked at 10:30. Noting Greg's posting, we wonder, has it moved up to St Justinan? If it stays around the Ramsey Sound area, one way of determining this would be to check if it only has one foot - the St Brides Bird had a missing foot!

Very sunny and warm and quite spring-like today. A peacock butterfly was on the wing along the roadside between Little Haven and Broad Haven.