A bit of Strumble Sea Bird History!

I came across one of the Strumble diaries i thought i had lost, yesterday. There are two pages sea bird fans might find interesting.The first is from the fifth of September 1997

I dont remember much about this one, there had been others! The second is about a week later on the 12th of September

These entries were made in my field diary written on my knee in the bunker/lookout, just after the sightings, when my hands had almost stopped shaking! Beneath the sketch, i wrote Graham Rees's words, uttered when he found it: "Are you on this shearwater? You should be, its close" And reasonably close it was, fluttering/feeding over a weedy pot bouy. So close i could make out its little grey/blue feet protruding beyond its tail. In this fluttery mode it resembled a big storm petrel. Apart from Graham, there were three others there, Rod Hadfield, Stewart Devonald and myself. Sadly I am the only one left. Rod could not get on it, so somehow i extracated myself from my chair without moving the scope,a mirror lens at X90, and Rod got his view. Greater love hath no Strumbler than to hand over the view of a little shearwater to a friend! Unfortunately it flew off before i could get back on it and i did not see it in level flight which was really what i wanted to see. The scope is still used by Chris Grayell I stopped using it on a daily basis as i was developing double vision!