Weasel: A superstar and grippingly good black-browed albatross turned up on the East Yorkshire coast. on Thursday at RSPB Bempton Cliffs, near Flamborough.
Well to say I was excited would have been an understatement to have the chance to see one of the best birds I just had to give it a go. So thanks for my boss Howard Fern who gave me to green light to go (I owe you one mate) I headed up Friday morning.
The bird had been seen fisrt thing before flying off, and appeared again around 11:30 am, but the lucks was conspiring against me as by the time the bird came back I was still 20 minutes away.
By the time I arrived the bird had gone, I waited all day but it never made an appearance and I even went back the following morning and again bird decided not to show up, it had gone, this was a mega dip!
I'm pretty wounded by this in all honesty, a txt off the right people or if I was more prepared in the morning I might have made it in time.
Still, and it was hard to get my head out of the depressive fog there was a nice supporting cast to keep me occupied between long bouts of waiting around for the albatross to turn up.
This family of weasels were the highlight, watching them chasing each other and avoiding the corvids as they weaseled in and out of their burrows on the cliff edge was joy to witness.
Puffin: Bempton is always a good play to see puffins, these charismatic little birds were nesting right beside the main watchpoint that the albatross was last seen and were many folk congregated in anticipation but ultimately despondency.
Gannet: The one thing these large twitchers enable me to do is to catch up with some cracking birders and local folk, at one point it felt more like a social then a twitch. Although the social distancing left a lot to be desired, I guess it would be hard at such a place anyway.
Long-eared Owl: The birding highlight was this LEO, that has been frequenting the ares for a few weeks now it wasnt here on the Friday but was kind enough to come out on the Saturday.
Great Skua: Another highlight was this great skua that spent much of its time on the hunt and we even witness it catch a kittiwake, kill it and eat it on the sea.
It's going to take some time to get over this one, sure you have to be in it to win it, you have to make the effort when you can.
Gannet: I think there are a lot of lessons to be learnt, in time for the next mega bird!
