Monday 18 September 2017

Grassholm; Sabine's Gull

We took Jake, Holly and Howard from Skokholm out towards Grassholm to have a look for cetaceans and birds.

Given the huge numbers seen off the Skokholm Lighthouse race recently, we were remarkably unlucky with dolphins: just a couple seen briefly under some Gannets; they didnt want to play with us.

Still plenty of Gannets on Grassholm: only if you have seen the astonishing density of nesting birds in midsummer would you realise that current numbers are probably less than half that.
The other surprises on Grassholm were the leucistic Shag on East Tump, and hundreds of roosting Kittiwakes.

Each way on what was at times a rather bumpy trip we investigated sometimes rather large groups of feeding seabirds. We came up trumps with a cracking juvenile Sabine's Gull, initially sitting on the water in a group of Kittiwakes, razorbills and larger gulls. It allowed us to drift within about 20 yards before lifting off to feed, and disappear. Good views, too, of an Arctic Tern and several Commons.