Actually it looks like it was yesterday rather than today Phil. At least for one well known BF poster:
http://proregulus.blogspot.com/2007/09/donkeys-wanger-of-seawatch.html
Yesterday afternoon the winds went round a little to the east, and things apparently got much better. Having said that, I met a well known local birder at Girdle Ness today who was there yesterday evening and didn't have much except a good passage of Sooty's. So in the spirit of the 'well known BF poster' himself, I think all his rares were just immature Gannets and Kittiwakes.
So today the place to be was clearly the North Sea coast - loads of eastern migrants coming in, megas in Shetland. What a great day to have a look round the Aberdeen's premier migration spot. Err...
Well, as it transpired I had an okay day, although it seems pretty bad in comparison to what's been getting seen elsewhere. Early doors, from the flat 49
Wigeon and 1
Common Scoter north and 3
Red-throated Divers south. I hit the road pretty swiftly and had a good tramp round the allotments and the Battery. Sibe warblers were fairly flying out of every bush. In my fevered imagination. In reality, there were a few more
Robins than usual but that's about your lot.
The wind again moved round a little to the east of north and seawatching suddenly seemed a worthwhile activity. Lo and behold - shearwaters. From 9:25 to 11:00 23
Manx Shearwaters and 15
Sooty Shearwaters north. Also 'happening' were 4
Red-throated Divers (2S, 2 on the sea), 1
Red-breasted Merganser, 11
Arctic Terns, 15
Common Scoters, 2
Velvet Scoters, 32
Wigeon, 35
Pink-footed Geese (S), 2
Fulmars (which are 'elusive' at the moment), 18
Teal, 2
Mallard, 1
Puffin and my first
Long-tailed Duck of the autumn (a female south). On the way back, I gave the south side of the Ness a good thrashing but came up with only a female
Stonechat. Someone needs to teach those bushes some discipline.
After having to go into work for a bit (sigh), I got back to the Ness for another go from 16:05- 17:50. Not so much moving, except for loads of auks and Gannets. Not many shears though, just 5 Manxies and 3 Sootys. I did witness my first skuas of the week, 2
Bonxies and 1
Arctic Skua. Where have they been? Probably the same places where everything else was. Plus, 4
Teal, 5
Red-throated Divers (S), 1
Wigeon, 4
Puffins, 1
Fulmar and a
Harbour Porpoise. I'm left with the conlusion that the highlight were 2
Pintail heading north - a glorious Girdle Ness tick! 9 species of duck whilst seawatching today - at least they seem to like me.
There seem to have been folks seawatching from Girdle Ness most of the day, from what I can gather. Other stuff seen by other slightly more fortunate people included Great-northern Diver, Slavonian Grebe and Little Auk. All of which I can probably live with.