Winter seawatching past and present

Winter seawatching is hard going, I used to do far more than I do now - as I seem to feel the cold more - age! Compared to other times of year the rewards are slim, a Great Skua or even a Pomarine Skua or a Balearic Shearwater if you're lucky. A good winter watch is usually dominated by a good movement of auks, Gannets and Kittiwakes which can be spectacular. My simplistic definition of winter is December–February. So what were some memorable watches and some snippets of information from my experiences?

Ah 1998!! In early January that year we had a series of SW to W winter gales (winds 80-100mph at times) that went on for a few days pushing birds up into the English Channel and Lyme Bay, blowing from way out in the Atlantic. On the 3rd Hope's Nose watchers had an amazing 77 Great Skuas, while I only managed to get to Berry Head for 2 hours that afternoon, I still saw 30. The next day we had 64 past Berry Head. There was probably c150 during early January 1998 through west Lyme Bay - pretty good for winter. Great Skua is a nice bird to see in winter but quite regular, although the January 1998 numbers were exceptional. When I worked on a boat fishing in the English Channel (2010–2013), in the winter Great Skua was a frequent attendant, showing the channel to be a regular wintering area. The most we had around the boat at any one time was 15 on 10/12/2011, which included a colour ringed adult (breeding bird from St.Kilda), a nice 'at sea' recovery.

St.Kilda ringed Great Skua off Devon from angling boat 10/12/2011

In January 1998 seeing the Great Skuas was good, but there were some more unusual visitors driven up in those storms. While Pomarine Skua is also regular in winter, it is less so than Great Skua; when I worked on the fishing boat I only saw one winter Pomarine. Back in January 1998 Hope's Nose recorded three on the 4th; while at Berry Head  I saw five different birds between 5th–9th ranging from adults (with and without spoons), immature and first-winter. Although Pomarine isn't an exceptional winter sighting Arctic Skua is. We had two sightings from Berry Head on the 5th and 8th. I'm usually quite sceptical about January–February (even December) sightings of Arctic as they winter much further south than Pomarine (and you need to be very careful to rule out a small Pom), but these were witnessed by a few of us. Adding further evidence as to how far away these winter storms had originated was an unprecedented influx of European Storm-petrels (also usually wintering further south, e.g. off southwest Africa). We saw one on the the 4th which was good, then 10 on the 5th (amazing), followed by an exceptional 41 on the 8th and three the next day. Just to put this in context, below is a graph plotting the monthly average number of Great Skuas and European Storm-petrels attending the boat (attracted to 'chum') I worked on 2010–2013. As you can see Great Skua was regular, but European Storm-petrel was absent in winter from the channel. So early January 1998 was pretty special off South Devon for out of context seabirds.

European Storm-petrel and Great Skua: monthly trip average of birds attending angling boat 2010–2013. Two very contrasting yearly distributions. European Storm-petrel is usually absent in winter, while Great Skua's lowest numbers are June-July in the English Channel and regular through the winter.

Shearwaters in winter off South Devon are a fairly scarce sight and can be the highlight of a winter seawatch. Balearic Shearwater being the most likely. Over the years I've had 15 winter Balearic sightings, but only two were of multiple birds, both in February 2008 (a two and a four). 2008 was perhaps the best year for Balearics wintering off Devon in small numbers and is still the only year when I saw a Balearic Shearwater in every month! Manx Shearwater is much rarer in winter off Devon and I've only seen three winter Manx to date in 2005, 2007 and 2018. Sooty Shearwater again is pretty rare in winter and to date I've had six winter sightings. Probably the most bizarre was one flying past Brixham breakwater heading out of Torbay on 01/01/2011 - a great and unexpected start to that seawatching year!

A 'pale' Balearic Shearwater, Berry Head, 30/01/2009. A pale bird like this might be mistaken for something else! But a Balearic it is on structure.

 In winter there can also be some good movements of Fulmars (our normal 'light' phase birds) and amoung them if you're lucky some 'blue' phase birds. I've seen most (23: 14 from land 9 from boat) of my 'blue' phase birds in this time of year, always a nice variation to look out for. Best count was six in a good passage on 31/12/2012. But by far the most striking bird was a 'double dark', that came past Berry Head on 29/01/2009. What a cracker, a bird worth getting cold and wet for!

'Double dark' Fulmar, Berry Head, 29/01/2009.

 But what was my best ever Devon winter seawatch? Well there is one that beats all others really due to one species! In early December 2006, a series of early winter gales hammered the UK. Winds remained in the SW-WSW for days with low pressure systems following on one after another. Being persistent with an WSW average direction, meant many Leach's Storm-petrels from far out in the Atlantic were driven up into the Bristol Channel, being seen from a number of locations - it effectively acts as massive 'heligoland trap'. I continued to watch the forecasts, hoping the wind would go NW or WNW and ease and allow an exodus of Leach's. The forecast for 08/12/2006 looked like it was going to do exactly that, so Hartland Point seemed a must. I managed to get to the lighthouse just after first light around 08:00, there was an ideal NW5 blowing and within minutes of setting up the telescope Leach's were moving through. I rang some of the locals who came down later to witness the event. In all I counted 155 Leach's passing by 14:00, setting a new record count for Devon. But the supporting cast wasn't bad ether: 51 Red-throated Divers, 18 Great Skuas, two Little Auks and a Puffin (rare bird in winter) in with the usual winter fare. It still remains my best Devon winter seawatch to date!  

This winter has been fairly quiet, although a strong force 6 southerly blow on 02/02/2017 was worth the effort of walking out to Berry Head. A Pomarine Skua, two Great Skuas and 'blue' Fulmar were the best of it, with supporting cast two each Great Northern and Red-throated Divers, Red-breasted Merganser, c250 Fulmar (normal phase), c500 Gannets, c200 Kittiwakes and many auks.

Hopefully before February is over there will be another good winter seawatch, but really looking forward to spring!

Updated

Splitting and lumping - what's a species anyway?

I'm glad to say I've never been a 'hard core' bird lister. Of course I use a notebook, so any seawatch or raptor-watch in effect becomes a list, where numbers and weather conditions etc are all duly written down - so I suppose I am a lister in a small way. Certainly when on holiday I always note the number of raptor or seabird species seen. But I've never been a great one for chasing after birds for the sole purpose to add to a list....and in fact if I was ever to make a Devon (forget UK) list it would be notable by the amount of species that have occurred in Devon that were easily twitchable (and I knew about) that I've not bothered to go and see. This is usually because the particular species didn't really interest me, so perhaps I'm a selective lister. Yet I've probably seen more Balearic Shearwaters in Devon than anyone else (so what!), each to their own as they say.

So it was with a wry smile when I read the BOURC's recent announcement here. Yes, they are adopting the IOC Word list. Seems to make a lot of sense to me, why not have a world-wide standard, as long as its a good standard using robust data! I imagine for many listers this throws a bit of a spanner in the works. Suddenly they are losing birds on one hand (being re-lumped), while on the other they might be gaining (being split).

For me there was one particular item of interest and that was the splitting of Fea's Petrel to [Fea's Petrel] Pterodroma feae and Desertas Petrel Pterodroma deserta. This split was waiting in the wings so to speak for some time, as suggested by some authorities. But then there is always the problem when such splits of cryptic species occur - no one can now say they've seen either [Fea's] or Desertas at sea, as there's too much overlap of in-field identification features and overlap of range (from translocater based studies). [Except in the unlikely event a bird is caught and DNA sampled, but then this seems to depend on what criteria are used!]. Same thing happened when the 'Band-rumped Petrels' were split, the UK lost its accepted Maderian Storm-petrel. So the Fea's Petrels I saw off the Desertas, Maderia back in 2015 were more than likely to be Desertas, but will now have to go down as [Fea's] / Desertas, or better remain as Fea's (more on the [Fea's] in a moment), likewise, same would apply to the handful of accepted UK Fea's seen from  Scilly pelagics - no longer a species anymore! Interestingly in Flood & Fisher's (2013) Pterodroma Petrels, they did not split Fea's (into separate species) and to avoid confusion used the term Fea's to describe the two taxa (sub-species): with separate names Cape Verde Petrel  Pterodroma feae feae and Desertas Petrel Pterodroma feae desertas; a similar approach to Howell 2012. To me this seems a better way forward as the two taxa have names associated with their breeding sites and should they be deemed separate species as IOC suggest avoids confusion. But.... Flood & Fisher stated that the genetic work by Gangloff et al. (2013), which used five genes (not just the usual one mitochondrial gene), two mitochondrial and three nuclear introns, showed a family tree that only warranted the split of Zino's and Fea's Petrel to species level! So on whatever grounds the IOC has split Fea's, it would be better to use Cape Verde Petrel and Desertas Petrel to avoid confusion over names. But is IOC's criteria robust enough if others disagree and what are the rules? So get ready to call your next, "think I've got a Zino's / Fea's / Desertas Petrel"! Fea's-type is probably easier!!

But lets take a step back. One thing I ask is what is a species anyway? I wonder how many listers ask that question, they should as its fundamental to their list. An interesting take on this here (especially the last sentence). Looking on IOC's website I couldn't (easily) find a definition of what they call a species. Surely the most important thing to have available. Are many gull [species] that interbreed and have fertile hybrid young really separate species, or just one super-species? If Yelkouan Shearwater and Balearic Shearwater are breeding on Menorca and producing fertile hybrids ('Menorcan Shearwaters') are they really separate species or is it just a cline across the Mediterranean (as some authorities suggest)? Should they go back to Mediterranean  Shearwater? I'm doing myself out of a species or two here!

Some nice introductions!

There are some bird species which were introduced into the UK that have become naturalised, which somehow fill a niche without major problems and become a 'nice' accepted addition to our avifauna. But before I go further lets define introduced species. They are the ones we never had in the first place (not natural), so if and when their populations die out and we want them back we reintroduce them. Case-in-point are pheasants (and Red-legged Partridges), were introduced and then are reintroduced every year at numerous shoots throughout the UK. So why is the term reintroduced used for birds like Red Kite, Osprey, White-tailed Eagle, Cirl Bunting (also falconers gave us Goshawk back on unofficial releases) etc, surely they were never introduced in the first place? They were once part of our natural native avifauna, so they are not reintroduced when brought back, merely re-established or trans-located from suitable donor sites. [Glad to say the Devon Bird Atlas 2007-2013 available here, at least referred to Red Kite and Cirl Bunting (in a Cornwall context) as re-established].

So back to my starting point. There are some 'nice' real introductions or reintroductions. For me at least two, Little Owl and Mandarin Duck (remember Ruddy Duck, but they didn't fit in!). Sadly I hardly see any Little Owls now, as many of their former haunts in Devon are unoccupied, e.g. I remember three territories around Prawle now vacant. Something has affected their breeding ecology; just look at the BTOs abundance change map for 1968-72 vs 2008-11 here, quite striking isn't it? A large decline in the west of its former UK range. Yet Mandarin seems to be doing well , particularly where I live. When taking a local walk by the river they add a welcome splash of colour. But how many are there on my local river now? In 2012 I chanced upon a private residence, where the lady owner had started winter feeding the local Mallards and Muscovy Ducks (another introduced species here!). But what it was also attracting was 'wild' free-flying Mandarins from up and down the river. In 2012 we had a peak count of 48 there, pretty good. But in 2013 we had a peak count of 88 on 16/01/2013! We didn't quite hit those levels in 2014 just high 60s. But in 2015 again we hit 88 on 06/02/2015. 2016 was marginally lower with 80 on 04/03/201. I expect there's actually over 100 as there's a lot of coming and going and probably not all the same birds are seen on subsequent days. I.e. there is at least one uniquely plumaged 'pale' male that was not present during one of the 88 counts. In a Devon context these numbers are very high! Come spring and they spread out along the river favoring the upper reaches and some tributaries, where if you're lucky you see family parties of ducklings later on. This winter I've not seen so many, perhaps its due to a new kayak launch site that started near the feeding site!

A Mandarin melee! River Dart 20/01/2013

Wish this was my birdtable!

The handsome drake Mandarin a worthy introduction!!

Highs and lows of 2016

Well we all have our best bits of a year and for me, finally getting the Yelkouan Shearwater accepted by BOURC/ BBRC, Mike Langman and I saw off Berry Head way back takes some beating. To be honest as nearly 8 years had past, I had all but written it off (due to perceived taxonomic issues). Then for the two of us to be asked by British Birds to write a 'New for Britain' was a great honour. For a seabirder (probably) a once in a lifetime opportunity to do this!

British Birds: 109: 448-459

In fact I seemed to be on a bit of a roll with British Birds as they also published my article on Balearic Shearwaters numbers through west Lyme Bay, Devon. Its great to see some use made of 10 years' (2172 hours) of seawatching observation, for this critically endangered seabird. I added in the 2016 data (not a good year), on this blog here. I hope to do some more analysis of seabird passage this year on this blog, perhaps looking at Arctic Skua, which is cause for concern!

British Birds: 109: 350-352

But.....my 2016 Devon seawatching year was not great and 2016 will not go down as notable. I did see two Cory's Shearwaters at separate headlands, and four Great Shearwaters (a two and two singles); and two Long-tailed Skuas. To think I was seawatching at Berry Head when a Black-browed Albatross went east past Prawle and I know where I should have been. No unusual raptors seen in 2016 and the fact a Lammergeier probably went over my house while I was away was bit off. I did find an unringed White Stork low over Exminster and a Dusky Warbler at Prawle (what a rare warbler for me was quite good!). Ending the year with three Siberian Chiffchaffs at my local sewage works was nice. Of course I saw lots of good birds, too many to list as rarities for me are not everything!

Unringed White Stork over the car, Exminster 10/05/2016

[Siberian] Chiffchaff one of three near home 29/12/16. 

One great project to be involved with was WildGuides new Britain's Birds: An Identification Guide to the Birds of Britain and Ireland, which was published in 2016. It set a new standard for a photographic guide, even pushing more conventional greats like the Collins Bird Guide hard. In fact the two together are a great combination for all birdwatchers. Its a great privilege to know your photographs (mainly seabirds, but some raptors in my case) are being used to help others in Bird identification. I think I ended up with 60 or so photographs in there. However, the book is not perfect and a couple of my photos have wrong labeling, but I doubt most people would notice unless you really know your stuff! Its 99% perfect and I'm sure a 2nd edition will be spot on. In 2016 there was a lot of 'grumpy old men' talk of buy a book, in relation to some internet postings, too right and this is a good one to get. Yes, this is what books are for, to help us all with our bird identification, then if you're still unsure and need help (as we all sometimes do) consult an expert, but at least have go yourself first. Books help with our spelling of bird names too, a bugbear of mine on certain blogs! I need help too as I'm dyslexic!!

It was also a privilege to get some Fulmar (mainly dark phase birds but also variation in bill colour) shots in Bob Flood and Ashely Fisher's latest Albatrosses & Fulmarine Petrels multimedia guide, in their North Atlantic Seabird series. I've been a great fan of their book / video combinations. What was even better the excellent illustrations within were all done by friend and local artist John Gale.

One of the lows for me was the 2015 Devon Bird Report which came out in 2016, hence in this review. Having been heavily involved in the past (1994-2009), I was also co-editor 1996-1998 (what a dyslexic editor!!). But there's more to editing than just spelling and grammar!! We once had an amazing editor in Pete Reay et al. - the halcyon years from 1999–2009. The report won 'best' award a few years on the trot and it was a honour to have been part of a great team. It was always going to be a hard act to follow. I was coaxed back in for DBR2015, but certain aspects relating to the use of my own records, are to be frank embarrassing, I won't say anymore as this review is generally upbeat. But before moving on there were couple of interesting things I found in 2016 while researching for writing the raptor account. (1) 2015 was the first year since 1969 with no accepted Honey-buzzard records! (2) It was the best Red Kite year, with a 'super' influx. But when it came to writing Red Kite, on receiving the data I thought hey there's a lot of sightings missing here, including that of 28 I remember seeing on the blog! So I painstakingly went through the Devon Bird news blog and extracted all the Red Kite records into excel. I seem to remember it added c120 new records, almost doubling the database. Guess what, many people put their sighting on the blog but then don't send them in! Perhaps people think putting things on the blog means it automatically gets into the DBR database. Well it did for Red Kite for one year only (as I passed the extract on to the data manager) and I've moved on. One thing the report always contains is excellent WeBS data etc and photographs, just needs a dam good edit and more consistent approach. Surely my five counts of 60+ Mandarins on the river Dart near home are worth an individual mention, like 88 on 06/02/2015 (I'm not after initials its the big counts that are important). Hopefully Devon Bird's new recorder will influence this and I wish him well.

There was also the Devon Bird Atlas published in 2016 with much pomp and ceremony. I'm not a great fan of atlases but of course did my bit to help, bit of surveying, then validating at the data collection stage, and then writing etc. The problem with Atlases the day they are produced they are already out of date. One thing the Devon atlas showed me is how flawed some of Sitters data was (just look at Kestrel, massive observer bias and that applies to other species). At the end of the day we still see the trends of what we already know is happening. But as birds don't recognise county boundaries, for me the National BTO Atlas 2007-11 is far more meaningful. Mark Avery wrote a review of Devon's, a bit harsh but to the point here. Its OK Mark I certainly wasn't offended. In Mark's review he called Sitters Atlas excellent, but how can it be if the data is flawed?

But what about my other great passion, monitoring raptors? Well a mixed year. At my local site the Peregrines produced four young (well four were present just prior to fledging). So that was the first time in 28 years of my monitoring (and the site being occupied) they had produced a four! I was really looking forward to watching four young playing over the town. But we never speak too soon with this site as they can be targeted just post-fledging (poisoned by folk who do not like Peregrines, as they have been in a least four times in the past). Well the young seemed to fledge OK, but something was wrong, I was not seeing them playing around as they should. Subsequent visits located just two young females, not flying well and unable to get any height! I first suspected mild poisoning and monitored them intently over the next days, although I wasn't altogether convinced their symptoms matched poisoning. From previous experience, with the modern pesticide abuse (Aldicarb & Carbofuran as used in 2005 & 2011), which sadly I've seen here, death is usually pretty quick and you just find the corpse. Anyway, their condition was not improving, they would just sit around low down with no major flights or play. So I contacted some falconer friends for advice and asked if they could help me catch them and take them in, to assess their condition and possibly keep for treatment. This meant seeing whether suitable facilities were available, Dave Scott could do it and Leonard Hurrell at a pinch!

They look like two healthy juvenile females, full cropped because the adults are feeding them. But they're too thin! Time to call an expert.

So friend and raptor rehabilitation guru Dave Scott came over and we managed to catch one of the two. On examination, there was little pectoral muscle on her breast bone, hence her inability to fly well (we couldn't catch the other). Poor bird had a bad parasite infestation of worms, seen when looking down her throat. Despite the parents feeding them well, the worms were taking all the nutrition before it could be assimilated into muscle - no muscle and can't fly to build muscle either.  Two days later I managed to catch the 2nd female who had become weaker and took her over to Dave's. He ordered up the right treatment from consulting his contacts and the slow process of de-worming these fine girls began. If I (we) had not intervened they would have died, the presumed fate of their other two siblings. Sadly in all this they missed that vital window with the adults of being taught to hunt. Although it was hoped to get them back quickly it took too long for them to be de-wormed properly and regain their condition, so now Dave has taken on the role of parent and will teach them to hunt for release into the wild. An unsung hero largely financed by himself, though I was able to arrange a donation towards their upkeep and treatment.

So last but not least to my passion for Goshawks. Over many years I've built up very good working relations with many landowners and forestry organisations. Finding breeding sites, helping plan around the birds. E.g forestry operations to take place so they don't affect the birds breeding success; and where possible putting in retentions (safe mature stands to keep the birds nesting in). Its a good relationship and we've had much success to the point where the birds are doing OK. One particular valley though had a major setback a few years ago when the area was taken over by a massive pheasant rearing shoot and my single productive pair there, unsurprisingly disappeared!! Luckily the area was subsequently bought by a conservation friendly organisation. Great news and I located two new pairs there after two years, but..... also there was now much better public access. Move on to 2015 and unfortunately one path passing close by a nest had a bad effect as with increased public access the site failed and the other site raised just a single. So one from two pairs in 2015 was not good. So for 2016 with the kind cooperation of the landowners I asked if we could close the track for the breeding season, as the birds had built a new nest that was easily looked down into, to see if it made a difference. The outcome was very successful and this pair reared four and the other three. That's seven more young in that valley and they take many Grey Squirrels as this family portrait shows. I should say of course I'm licenced to work with Goshawk and Peregrines.

In all my years of monitoring I seldom find a nest that can be looked into by a track. Closure of the track meant four young fledged - a great success.

 

Lets see what 2017 brings! Happy New Year.

Knee tremblers and wing runners!

Having dwelt on seawatching numbers in a previous post, thought I say something about those few ‘rare’ encounters; well one species group in particular. So what’s my best off Devon? For me the real ‘knee trembler’ is seeing a Pterodroma! Though I’ve seen seven (and one that got away, more on that later) off Britain and Ireland (3 Devon, 4 Ireland); that’s more than Barolo Shearwaters (3; 1 Devon, 2 Ireland) or Yelkouans (2 Devon), yet they're more exciting! There’s just something about the way they fly and look puts them right at the top of the pile. Pterodroma, the name says it all, from ancient greek pteron, "wing" and dromos, "runner", reflecting their remarkable effortless flight action.

We saw the first accepted Pterodroma for Devon pass Prawle Point on 17/08/1999, but in awful weather and far too briefly (c10 seconds) to really appreciate it. We actually submitted as a Pterodroma of the Fea's / Zino's / Soft-plumaged Petrel group, in those days Soft-plumaged Petrel was still being used to describe UK and Irish birds. It was accepted as a Zino’s / Fea’s Petrel - yes back to that in a minute. Despite that bird being too brief for a real ‘knee tremble’; it was still a momentous occasion for the five of us who saw it, which Matt Knott nicely wrote up in DBR1999 p167–168.

My second at Berry Head on 17/07/2001 was a different experience altogether, much better views, better weather and seen for a longer period (5 minutes, to appreciate it) with Mike Langman and Bill MacDonald. Mike and I picked it up simultaneously well to our north in Lyme Bay, with two Manx heading in towards us. I can still remember suddenly seeing that graceful yet dynamic flight and yes the ‘old’ knees immediately going into the ‘Pterodroma tremble’. So much so I struggled to get the words out, mumbling “**** you better get on this”. This bird was clearly bigger (longer-winged) than the accompanying Manx. One of the reasons we actually submitted as Fea’s Petrel (based on size etc), but it got accepted as Zino’s / Fea’s Petrel. Four more followed from visits to Ireland in 2006 and 2007, again each time I saw one, still that rush of adrenalin. The three Irish birds in 2007 were made even sweater with the realisation Del and I managed to clock the first, second and third sightings for County Mayo! Yet each time that real buzz of pure excitement that just doesn’t go away with the next one. My final UK bird (so far, here’s hoping) was again at Prawle Point on 31/08/2009, this time on my own and seen for 10 minutes as fairly well out, but picked up coming from well to the east and continued to watch until is disappeared into the west. It still invoked the ‘Pterodroma tremble’, after which I rushed up to Prawle village to get a mobile signal to phone it in, hoping to give others a shot at it further west along the coast. It went past Porthgwarra right on cue, some  5 hours 21 minutes later, giving those present a chance to appreciate the ‘Pterodroma tremble’, or as Russ Wynn there at the time described as ‘dribbling and swearing’. I suppose they have different effects on different people! What also makes these birds so magic on a seawatch is, they just don’t hang about and after that brief view (a few minutes if you’re really lucky), they’re gone and you’re left wanting more, or thinking did I really see that!

Well a few years have passed and I’ve not been lucky with another off Devon or even trips to Cornwall. I felt myself going into some sort of Pterodroma withdrawal (well save the one we’ll visit in a minute). There was only one remedy, I just had to go to Madeira and indulge myself in the Wind Birds pelagic trips, following in the footsteps of seawatching friend, the late Dave Norman and so many others. I’d heard so much good talk about these trips, with the added possibility of seeing both Zino’s and Fea’s (Desertas) Petrels. Definitely on a seabirders must do list!

So I completed the Wind Birds amazing three days of pelagics during 26/05/15–28/05/2015. I had great views of many tubenoses, including seeing three new species. But you know what, for me the best were those Pterodroma sightings (and White-faced Storm-petrel of course). Even out on a boat you get that absolute buzz when one turns up, usually just all too briefly as it investigates the chum slick before just disappearing again back out into the ocean. It was great to actually see Zino’s Petrel in the field and although I should have taken a lot more photos, I preferred to watch and savour when one turned up, rather than having my eye buried in the back of a DSLR all the time and missing the action. Although we saw Pterodroma petrels that could not be specifically assigned to either Zino’s or Fea’s (Desertas) Petrels, I found both the ‘good’ Zino’s we saw to be more delicate birds than the ‘good’ Fea’s, with a lighter feel about them and how they flew, being more Manx sized - even before critical stuff like bill size (and underwing) was analysed from photos. Now thinking back to my few UK and Ireland sightings, though they’ve all been accepted as  Zino's / Fea’s, not one of them (based on my Madeira experiences) could I say best fitted Zino’s. Those seen well and in company of other seabirds for size comparison have all better fitted Fea’s. When you think the few positively identified birds so far off the UK (all photographed) have been Fea’s, Zino’s does seem to be the less likely (especially considering relative population sizes), although as with all seabirds anything is possible, as a Bermuda Petrel off Ireland and Soft-plumaged Petrel off Norway show. But heck in bird reports with this particular species amalgam the Zino's bit comes first (taxonomic order!), Zino's / Fea's. It’s a bit like seeing Cory’s Shearwaters off Devon, there’s a remote possibility we may overlook a Scopoli’s Shearwater (and we’d need a good photograph to get one accepted), but we’re still calling them Cory’s Shearwater (and in the bird reports) as the most likely and not Cory’s / Scopoli’s Shearwater. Of course many of the Cory’s I’ve seen off Devon were sufficiently good views of the underwing to be fairly confident they were Cory’s, but many weren't (but separable from Great of course). Anyway going back to main subject, a Pterodroma sighting is still a magic event whether you can go down to species or not.

A very rare Pterodroma! A 'good' Zino's Petrel, on jizz in the field, structure, bill etc, but with a dark underwing coverts scoring 0–1 (in the overlap underwing score with Fea's, its still a Zino's) and below the other extreme.

A 'good' Zino's Petrel, with a pale underwing coverts scoring 4 (zone with little overlap with Fea's, so more clear cut as a fly past). This would be quite distinctive passing one of our headlands - if only!

That brings me onto one that got away. On the 02/10/2012 I was at my favourite Devon seawatch headland. Conditions were ideal with a SSW 5, increasing SW force 6–7 and murky horizon. There was an exceptional Sooty Shearwater passage underway; I ended the day with 326 birds - Devon's second highest count (also 82 Balearic Shearwaters). An excellent watch in itself, however, at 10:15 I saw a bird that completely stumped me at the time. It was a fair way out, moving through with Sooty Shearwaters, so in direct comparison very similar in size. When I initially picked it up I thought I was looking at a slim dark phase skua (like a dark juv Long-tailed in shearing flight). I've seen Long-tailed shearing before many times (including many trips watching the passage off North Uist), but then the flight of this bird was far more dynamic and not a skua! That initial thought of skua was because the bird was a cold dark brown and lacked the silvery underwing (though the coverts) of Sooty Shearwaters (many for comparison), any pale on the underwing was restricted to just the base to the primaries (underwing), it also lacked the longer necked, smaller headed look of Sooty, being shorter necked and slightly larger headed. The similarity of the attenuated rear end of Long-tailed skua, almost a wedge-tailed appearance was also notable! The more I looked at it the more I was convinced it was a dark Pterodroma sp. That effortless flight, several times it towered up (yes Sooties do that), but with little effort and hardly a flap looking more buoyant, to be easily lost on the down glide against the sea to reappear again towering up. At one point it looped completely back on its flight path in typical Pterodroma fashion. At this point I went into the ‘Pterodroma tremble’ and after it had gone I gathered my thoughts made some notes and phoned fellow seawatching friend Mike Langman. I was certain it was not a Sooty (I’d seen a quite a few) and not a skua. I knew it was something very good, but I also knew realistically I wasn’t likely to ever do anything with it (too far out for a photo which you will need for an extreme rarity) - but what was it likely to be? In early 2013 I purchased Steve Howell's (then new) ‘Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America: A Photographic Guide’. In this excellent book I found something that matched my bird. Pictures and description of dark morph Trindade Petrel! I also hadn't realised they were regularly occurring in the west North Atlantic!! Later in 2013 I also purchased Bob Flood and Ashely Fisher’s superb ‘Pterodroma Petrels’ multimedia guide. Again Trindade Petrel was the best fit. So I bucked up the courage to email Bob about the sighting, saying not enough to go any further but what were his thoughts? I received a very positive reply, which concluded this was the most likely candidate, as fairly regularly occurring off North Carolina (and a few Azores) and to date c. 70% in the North Atlantic have been dark morph! He went on to say “When I read your description of 'that bird' off Start Point, it resonated strongly with my experiences of Trindade Petrel”!

Had somehow a Trindade Petrel go caught up in the same Atlantic conditions that had brought in this massive movement of Sooties to the Western Channel? Of course I'll never know!

But alas for me a Pterodroma that got away. Seems the UK has had a few close calls with this particular “knee trembler”, I hope one will be seen well (and photographed) sooner or later and added to the British list!

Notes on that bird. I'm no bird artist, looks like I've drawn a skua, but it weren't no skua!

Evolution and devolution!

I’ve been a keen amateur photographer for many years. It all started when I was given a second-hand Nikon EM body (that’s a budget 35mm film DSLR), by my dear late mum around 1980. And so with Nikon I’ve stuck for around 36 years! I then moved up to a second-hand Nikon FG body (again DSLR film); everything was manual in those days, even winding on the film for the next shot! I also got a Sigma 400/5.6 (manual focus) telephoto lens and so bird photography started. I later progressed to a Nikon F-301 camera body in 1991, which actually had a motor to wind the film on, state of the art then mate!!

Armed with said tools the Ms and I would go off some where exotic, like watching raptor migration at Tariffa (in the good old days of pesetas I may add). Before setting off on one of these jaunts, I’d purchase 15 or so slide films, usually Fujichrome 200/400 or Kodachrome 200 (expensive at the time with processing included) and snap away while on holiday. Then on arrival back home I'd post off the films in their pre-paid processing envelopes bound for the Fujifilm or Kodak labs, then usually they’d come back one by one after a week or so - never all on the same day mind, just to heighten that anticipation of that plop and rattle of another package landing on the doormat!  Then would come the fun bit - armed with a slide viewer and most importantly a bin, I’d go through them chucking away all the rubbish.... and rubbish there was a fair bit of. In fact it was a very wasteful process and how you just love digital these days, where there’s no need to worry about waste. Around this time I also stupidly exchanged my fine Sigma telephoto for a Tokina 80-400 telephoto zoom (because it was smaller!), which may explain why even more slides were going in the bin.

An example of the good old days of film - probably the best bird I’ve ever seen, a record shot of a Harpy Eagle (in Venezuela's rain forest). Just look at those feet! Also a Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture (so flight shots were possible with manual focus). Both taken with the Tokina not such a good lens - but two slides that escaped the bin!

Harpy Eagle, Venezuela. Nikon F301 & Tokina 80-400

Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture, Venezuela. Nikon F301 & Tokina 80-400

In 2006 I finally made the jump and went digital, buying a Nikon D50 (6 mega pixels (MP)). The first thing It showed me was how c***p my Tokina lens was when viewing an image at pixel level. So off I went to a camera dealer and bought a second-hand Nikon 300/f4 AF for £200 and p/ex of the Tokina. What a brilliant lens the Nikon was, built like a tank in Japan and optically very sharp. Out in the field recently I noticed a birding colleague still had one of these greats in his procession – hang on to it Tim, even if you buy another as an upgrade. Sadly my 300/f4 AF had a much worn mount (it was over 10 years old after all even when I bought it), so it wouldn’t always focus due to the contacts sometimes being out of line, so I took it back and p/ex for a second-hand Nikon 300/f4 AF-S. Again a well built lens made in Japan, while not optically superior, much faster focusing, but lacking the image stabilisation of modern lenses. A history of these 300 Nikon lenses is shown here http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/comparisons/300mm-f4.htm. That D50 300/f4 AF-S combination worked well for me, as these Poms off North Uist and a Buller's (perhaps the best) Shearwater off New Zealand show.

Pomarine Skuas, North Uist with the D50 & 300f4/AFS combo

Buller's Shearwater with the D50 & 300f4/AFS combo

In the meantime a Nikon D80 digital camera was purchased as an upgrade to the D50. The D80 was used for just one day, I didn’t like it, but what a day! It took those Yelkouan Shearwater photos off Berry Head - the D50 would have done a better job and if only a D7000 or D7200 was around then. 

Yelkouan Shearwater with the D80 300f4/AFS combo

So back went the D80 and I stuck with my D50 until purchasing a Nikon D300 camera (as a 50^th birthday present to myself) in 2009. The D300 & 300f4/AFS combination has taken so many good photos; many used in bird reports, articles, bird atlases, even identification books. The D300 became my trusty companion when I started working on a fishing boat - but going to sea all that time took its toll, as despite keeping it well wrapped up, sadly the salty atmosphere was not agreeable to its circuit boards and finally continuous autofocus mode (the one you need for flying seabirds) packed up. Its replacement was Nikon's D7000, actually superior in picture quality to the D300 and a bump up in pixels from 12 to 16MP, though not of a semi-pro type build quality so not as robust. Still a great camera (much lighter) and I still have it and it still functions despite a lot of at sea work!

Sooty Shearwater with the D300 300f4/AFS combo

Great Shearwater with the D7000 300f4/AFS combo

So once good quality consumer gear came from Nikon - notice I say consumer gear I can't afford or justify the pro-stuff and have taken good shots without it. All these Nikon camera and lenses were well made by Nikon mostly in Japan though some in Thailand, lasting even if second-hand and 10+ years old. They lasted well beyond their warranty period, even under extreme conditions (e.g. D300 and 300/f4 AF-S combination). My ability to be able take good photos has been greatly enhanced by huge steps in technology, autofocus and digital images (so you keep firing) negating the need for waste compared to those film days.

So move on to this year. Though I loved my 300/f4 AF-S lens, it was quite heavy, so one was always presented with dilemma, do I lug around the camera, lens, teleconverter, binoculars, telescope, tripod, packed lunch, flask, brolly (essentials for seawatching), or do I leave some bits behind? Well the bit often left behind was the camera lens combination. At times much to my cost! Having an adult Bridled Tern fly past at Pendeen at a range a photo would have greatly helped the rarity submission process (as in aberrant plumage) has long bugged me -  why did I leave the camera at home? But what if Nikon made a 300/f4 lens, which was half the size of the 300/f4 AF-S lens and half the weight and had image stabilisation? In 2015 Nikon starting producing such a beast or should I say mini-beast. I watched the reviews - mostly good, and waited for the price to come down as it always does. Bill, a friend who was just getting back into photography after a couple of false starts (gear wise), asked what I would recommend. So I thought this new lens combined with a Nikon D7200 camera body, could be good. If we go back to my first digital camera, the D50, it was a mere 6MP, well the D7200 has a staggering 24MP. Although that’s a 4x hike in pixels, in reality in terms of resolution it’s actually 2x. This is because it’s twice as much across the frame (or bottom to top) 6000x4000 pixels versus 3000x2000. Never-the-less that’s like having a 2x teleconverter on my old D50! So Bill came around one day with his new toys, we played with them and the results looked very good - glad to say he was not disappointed and I had to get one!

Just to show the jump in resolution from even 16MP to 24Mp, here's a shot of the moon using both my modern cameras. The D7200 is like having a 1.25x teleconverter on compared to the D7000, quite noticeable!

D7000 with 300/f4/PF VR

D7200 with 300/f4/PF VR

But its not all good news. So I bought the new Nikon 300/f4 PF VR lens - there's a few things of worry. It has a lot of plastic, to keep the weight down (so I'm very careful with it), oh and it’s made in China! Initial results looked good though and it certainly was much easier to carry round. Then with a falling pound after the 'Brexit' decision, I decided to get a D7200 before the prices hiked, as they did! So after years of very few problems with Nikon I encountered one straight away. The D7200 I purchased instantly had problems with the focus screen's embedded circuitry, showing blobs that shouldn’t be there! Luckily I’d bought it from London Camera Exchange who changed it straight away (a great shop and much better service than a certain shop in Brixham). All the same that camera should have never got through Nikon’s quality control if there is one? But the replacement was fine and just cost me a return journey to Plymouth. Now a few months on and 300/f4 PF VR lens has started squealing and sounding very rough, affecting focus. As its under warranty its gone back to Nikon. In fact it went back to Nikon three times which in all took 50 days. In the end London Camera Exhange Plymouth gave me a replacement. 10/10 to them 0/10 to Nikon. Even the replacement has front focusing issues, more bad QC.
Are Nikon evolving or devolving?

When the D7200 with 300/f4/PF VR work, they work well! Blimey that's a big Spar :)

Just a few hours!

This post was inspired by a recent email conversation with a fellow seawatcher, who thought looking at effort (hours put in) and the results was fascinating. To many it might be a yawn but I’ll continue!

As my seawatching became more and more regular, I made myself a relational database in ACCESS to capture the results (big yawn!). By relational this means a whole watch is a record, which captures date, the start and finish time, weather etc; while the bird sightings (or marine sightings) are sub-records attached to that day. This means I know how many hours I’ve watched and can calculate passage rates (birds/ hour), by Devon, by Devon site etc. Importantly it effectively records nil results by default, days where I’ve not seen a species (e.g. days with nil Balearic Shearwaters). These nil records are important for calculating effort, but cannot be calculated in many Bird societies’ databases because of the data structure (because the blank days aren't recorded). So to date (since 1991 when I started keeping records), I calculate I’ve done 3814 hours seawatching in Devon. That’s the boring bit over.

So out of interest I’ll pump out some figures from my database of numbers seen in those 3814 hours (Devon only), firstly for the tubenoses. So let’s go rarest first:

1 Macaronesian (Barolo) Shearwater (BBRC accepted)

2 Yelkouan Shearwaters (one BBRC accepted, one in circulation).

3 Fea’s Petrels (BBRC accepted, notice I’ve not put in the / Zino’s bit, more on this for another day).

50 ‘Blue’ Northern Fulmars

166 Leach’s Storm-petrels

544 Cory’s Shearwaters

689 Great Shearwaters

2049 Sooty Shearwaters

6110 European Storm-petrels

7842 Northern Fulmars

9981 Balearic Shearwaters

373413 Manx Shearwaters

One thing that surprised me was, I didn’t expect Leach’s to be rarer than the two big shearwaters, but when you think about where I watch it is - that’s likely to be different say in East Devon. Nothing else really surprising though. The ratio of Balearic to Manx Shearwaters is 1:37. Sooty to Manx is 1:182 and Sooty to Balearic roughly 1:5. Interesting how rare ‘Blue’ Fulmars are down here, roughly 1:157 to our usual phase birds.

'Big' seabird events very much skew the results, i.e. I’ve seen more than half my Devon Cory’s Shearwaters on just one day and even more notable, I saw 93% of the Leach’s total in a day. But my philosophy is, if you don’t put in the hours you're unlikely to be there when that ‘big day’ happens. Another thing coming out of this, considering the hours put in, I've got a very low hit rate with seeing rare tubenoses! While on rare seabirds notice that's roughly a 1:5000 chance of seeing a Yelkouan vs Balearic Shearwater (I don't count probables)!!

What about the skuas? Again rarest first:

97 Long-tailed Skuas

1079 Pomarine Skuas

3924 Great Skuas

5389 Arctic Skuas.

No surprises there either. That’s a 1:56 ratio Long-tailed to Arctic; and a 1:5 ratio Pomarine to Arctic. Sadly with the continued demise of the Arctic Skua population, these ratios will shorten further. Way back in 1998 I remember an incredible few days for Arctic Skua passage at Berry Head, when I personally saw 875 during 6–7/09/1998. I’m unlikely to ever see anything like that again and perhaps the days of a 100+ Arctics on a seawatch down here are gone. I predict the Great Skua to Arctic Skua ratio moving more towards 1:1 (currently 1:1.4) and may already be there!

And scarcer gulls, terns and auks - I’ll just do my favorites:

1 Laughing Gull

10 Roseate Terns

10 Black Guillemots

16 Little Terns

48 Sabine’s Gulls

65 Little Auks

261 Arctic Terns

274 Black Terns

602 Mediterranean Gulls

1273 Puffins

3891 Sandwich Terns

8306 Common Terns

Interesting? For me Roseate Tern is as rare as Black Guille on a seawatch, otherwise no surprises there.