We wanted to take advantage of the calm winds to venture out to Grassholm. There was still quite a lot of swell first thing, but this died down after lunch.
We spent almost the whole trip, once we left the Haven, looking at the fog, and the sun, and telling each other that it would burn off - it never did.
But the fog brought birds, especially Manxies, far closer inshore than would have been the case on a clear day. On the way out we found a flock of c.100 birds feeding actively only about a mile off St Ann’s Head. On the way back a smaller number of Manxies were in with a Kittiwake flock directly under the Head, only a few hundred metres from the shore.
2 possible large cetacean glimpses on the way out were all we had. On Grassholm itself the Gannet colony was active, noisy and smelly! But the density appears materially lower than pre-Avian Flu. However Guillemot numbers appeared up, and more widely distributed, even onto areas previously occupied by Gannets.
2-3 rather smart “late-Spring” Turnstones were the other notable sightings through the fog!