North Sea spring skua passage shock

[Andrew Whitehouse]

I went down to Fife Ness this afternoon and thought I'd do a bit of seawatching. There was a bit of northwesterly so I thought I might get a few Manxies and maybe there was the chance of a skua. When I got to the seawatching hide there was a guy who'd been looking for a bit and he said he'd seen 3 Bonxies, which is pretty impressive for Fife in spring. I settled down and within a few minutes had a couple of rather distant Bonxies. Eventually I managed 4, with the other two much closer in, 2 Arctics and (wait for it) Long-tailed Skua :bounce:

The latter was a bit of a way out but was against the sky and so the tail streamers were still very obvious. So small too, like a dark tern. LT Skua in spring in Fife is a real rarity but I noticed on Birdguides that there have been quite a few others in the North Sea today - anyone else connect?

[Jane Turner]

I can't even SEE the sea today, there is so much haze....

[Rob Smallwood]

There has definitely been a "fall" of Skua sightings around "our" coast over the last few days with a large number of what we would consider unseasonable records especially of Long-tailed's.

Whils the weather must play a key factor I suspect that the considerable increase in sea-watching at all times of the year must contribute.

[tom mckinney]

There was a "big" (by spring standards) Long Tailed Passage yesterday on the east coast, Andrew.

One lingered off Newbiggin for most of the day and some were seen passing quite a few north-east coastal headlands.

[Andrew Whitehouse]

A few days ago there were large numbers off the Western Isles and this has been followed by a few days of north or northwesterly winds presumably pushing at least some of these birds southwards and down into the North Sea. I guess the birds seen over the last couple of days have been reorientating northwards.

With the increase in seawatching, I suppose that's obviously going to help with picking up on these movements, in comparison to the past. There's still very little seawatching done in Fife in spring though. When I checked the log book in the seawatching hide at Fife Ness yesterday, there were only a couple of other entries in the last few weeks.

[Rob Smallwood]

Andrew,

I suspect that some serious coverage would throw up some interesting records - oh for a bit of coastline - sea-watching in Manchester is both lonely and pointless!