St David's Head and end of the day at Newgale

We spent four quite pleasant hours recording seabirds in glorious sunshine from St David's Head. The main species today being Auks. There were feeding rafts  of up to 300 or more at one time between Carreg-trai and North Bishop. There was also a good steady movement south during late morning (mainly guillemots) with at least 1,000 recorded (a high proportion in summer breeding plumage).

There was also a steady movement south of kittiwakes (c. 500 or so in small flocks) plus small numbers of common gulls and black-headed gulls but no Med gulls were seen today.

At least 30 common scoters and a dozen red-throated divers also went south, one diver was noted feeding offshore in the early afternoon. A peregrine dashed out towards Carreg-trai, had a practice stoop at a great black-back gull before beginning more serious attempts at kittiwakes and auks.

At the end of the day we met Clive Hurford and others watching the gulls at Newgale - numbers now much reduced. With Clive, and in failing light, we managed to see an immature Iceland Gull, initially perching on the cliff near the Brandy Brook outflow before it flew off south and then watched the sunset - a very nice way to end the day!