{"id":1786,"date":"2012-09-25T14:00:50","date_gmt":"2012-09-25T13:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1786"},"modified":"2012-09-25T14:00:51","modified_gmt":"2012-09-25T13:00:51","slug":"every-cloud-has-a-silvery-grey-lining","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/every-cloud-has-a-silvery-grey-lining","title":{"rendered":"Every cloud has a silver(y) grey lining"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our final full-day pelagic for 2012 was on Saturday and, although I was really looking forward to it, it’s always a shame when we reach the end of our offshore season.<\/p>\n

With strong winds on Thursday, and charter boats cancelling trips on Friday, I still felt that we’d be able to sail.\u00a0 We gathered at Royal Quays just before 09:00 and boarded the SarahJFK.\u00a0 Brian<\/a> spotted a Great Spotted Woodpecker<\/strong><\/em> just after we set sail, and as we headed downstream we could see a little bit of swell and a few whitecaps offshore.\u00a0 A skein of Pink-footed Geese<\/strong><\/em> high overhead were heading south, and we weren’t too far out of the river when we had our first skua of the day; and it was one of those ‘is it, isn’t it?’ moments as what was probably a dark Pomarine<\/strong> Skua <\/strong><\/em>flew north low over the waves.\u00a0 Three Great Skuas<\/strong><\/em> were heading the same way, and another one later caused a ‘dread’ amongst the birds gathered round a fishing boat.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/em>Fulmars<\/strong><\/em> and Kittiwakes<\/strong> <\/em>were with us throughout most of the day and Gannets<\/strong> <\/em>were soaring by on the breeze.\u00a0 Our first Sooty Shearwater<\/strong><\/em> was in a raft of gulls behind a trawler, and we had at least five more during the day.<\/p>\n

As the swell began to ease slightly we were 8 miles off Cresswell, heading north west, when I saw two small waders flying up and over a wave crest.\u00a0 As they dropped onto the sea I shouted “Grey Phalaropes<\/strong><\/em>!” and called to Allan to stop the boat.\u00a0 Eventually we all had excellent views of these two tiny birds as they bobbed about in the swell.\u00a0 They were the 2nd and 3rd that I’ve seen on pelagics I’ve organised, following the 1st out in the Farne Deeps in 2010<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Grey<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Grey<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Grey<\/a><\/p>\n

We headed towards the coast, and turned to make our way back towards Royal Quays.\u00a0 Our only Manx Shearwater<\/strong><\/em> of the trip was followed soon after by a Pomarine Skua<\/strong><\/em>, found by Cain<\/a>, six Red-throated Divers<\/strong><\/em> (including four flying south together), 42 Pale-bellied Brent Geese<\/strong><\/em> heading north, 20 Wigeon<\/strong> <\/em>and 30 Common Scoter<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 With only one Manx Shearwater<\/strong><\/em>, and no Arctic Skuas<\/strong><\/em> at all, this was quite an unusual pelagic but, if you like waders, and you like seabirds, then phalaropes are a dream bird \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our final full-day pelagic for 2012 was on Saturday and, although I was really looking forward to it, it’s always a shame when we reach the end of our offshore season. With strong winds on Thursday, and charter boats cancelling trips on Friday, I still felt that we’d be able to sail.\u00a0 We gathered at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,105,5],"tags":[67,122,185,363,368,301,364,401,392,387,69,365,181],"class_list":["post-1786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-north-sea","category-northumberland","tag-common-scoter","tag-fulmar","tag-gannet","tag-great-skua","tag-grey-phalarope","tag-kittiwake","tag-manx-shearwater","tag-pale-bellied-brent-geese","tag-pink-footed-geese","tag-pomarine-skua","tag-red-throated-diver","tag-sooty-shearwater","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1786"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1794,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786\/revisions\/1794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}