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Where have all the seabirds gone...? (1 Viewer)

Mark Newsome

Mark Newsome

Born to seawatch...
Is it just my eyesight failing me when seawatching this year, but what's happened to all the regular seabirds in the North Sea? It's been a brisk northerly today, early November - you'd have been guaranteed a hatfull of Little Auks and Pomarine Skuas 10 years ago. But this year...? Even with the right weather conditions, Pomarines have been extremely hard to come by and other than a scattering of Little Auks, there's not been a sniff of any proper movement. Have these northerly breeders all had a disastrous breeding season and dispersed way into the Atlantic much earlier than normal? Does anyone else think it's rather alarming what's happening to the seabird populations in the North Sea? And when are the government going to start doing something to address the serious over-fishing problem we've got? In another few years, we might be struggling to see Arctic Terns and Puffins... :eek!:
 
Hi i wonder if the poor breeding caused by bad weather meant early return migration.

Also felt that good viewing weather conditions for seabirds were hard to come by this year, i had reasonable movement of Poms in October but in a small window of decent conditions.

Regards Cuddy
 
Hello Mark
Interesting & Worrying 1st posting.

Birds seem to be some of mother natures most visible & best indicators....

When they're Not there then there's certainly something up.

Apparently, Uk Seabird breeding failures were put down to lack of sand eels together with poor summer weather.
These localised factors may go some way to explaining the lack of British birds, - but Not the lack of Pom & L'Auk etc
Surely all the Northern seabird colonies cant have had the same problem?

I wonder to what extent has the last 10 years of quite rapid climate change, damaged/changed our seas & oceans ?? (change in currents/food-chain etc?)

It would be interesting if any other regular North Sea watchers could comment.

SE.
(weather looks promising towards the wkend ;) )
 
Hi, Mark!

I see this is your first post to BirdForum so wanted to extend a warm welcome to you from all of us on staff here.

This is undoubtedly a stupid question, but do the mid-Atlantic hurricanes affect your migrants that far north? We certainly had a bumper crop of them this year!
 
Interesting reading your comments.
katy - I don't think the hurricanes would affect the Scandinavian and Russian birds we get (Poms and Little Auks). But they certainly might affect Atlantic seabirds such as Sooty Shearwaters getting into the North Sea.
Cuddy - certainly agree with your comments about lack of suitable seawatching weather. A lot of time has been spent watching the weather forecasts, waiting and praying for a decent northerly.
One thing I have noticed compared to 10-15 years ago is how long birds spend in the area after being blown down by a northerly. After a good blow in the 1980s, birds such as Sooty Shearwaters would appear in good numbers and then be present for following days/weeks in lesser numbers, indicating there was ample food around to keep them happy. Now, you'll get a good seawatch for a day or two, then everythings gone, as if there's no food to retain the birds in the southern North Sea. It must point to over-fishing, or maybe climate/sea temperature changes. This is also reflected in cetaceans such as Harbour Porpoise. You just don't seem to see as many now as you used to.
Steve - see you down Whitburn Obs at the weekend? With north-westerlies predicted, all this theorising about no decent seabird movements might all be proved wrong!
 
Might have a look through over the wkend Mark, will double check the forecast as 2days wasnt what they predicted... (surprise-surprise).
Little Auks a Blk throat Diver or 2 & a Shorelark flock would be nice..... ;)
SE.

+ just had a look at the site, very impressive.
 
Last edited:
Hi Mark added your website to my favourites always interested in Whitburn reports.
are you concerned by the press reports that the quarry is going to become alandfill site?.

Regards Cuddy
 
Yup Steve, I'll be counting Little Auks in my sleep tonight! The final total for the day was around 3000 Little Auks. So this totally proves me wrong in my earlier comments about the lack of good seabirds this autumn! (but it is rather nice to be proved wrong this way!). I've not seen the full counts for other sites on the east coast, but early indications are that the Little Auks didn't venture much past the Tees.
The other rather interesting bird today at Whitburn was an all-dark small auk seen by 4 of us - have a read of my brief account at: http://members.lycos.co.uk/whitburnbirding/alcid.htm
Anyone had experience of Crested Auklet in seawatch conditions?
 
Mark,

Is there anything about this bird that suggested it wasn't a Little Auk. Given the abundance of Little Auk in the world surely melanistic birds must turn up; there was a picture of a leucistic Puffin I saw recently so auks clearly can have aberrant plumage even if it isn't common.

Now we know where the Little Auks are can someone tell me where the Red-throated Divers are, because they aren't off Blackpool in any numbers this autumn.

Stephen.
 
whitburnmark said:
I've not seen the full counts for other sites on the east coast, but early indications are that the Little Auks didn't venture much past the Tees.
Click to expand...

Yeah, according to the reports on Birdguides early evening several hundred off Yorks and hardly any further south. Is this typical given the weather over the last few days?

Still hoping to see my first ever Little Auks this autumn, despite being half way through November...wondering if it will be worth checking for stragglers off Norfolk when I have a day free on Tuesday.

Very interesting to read about your unusual auk, Mark - hope you get some informed opinions.

James
 
Hi Stephen. I've had a check in the literature I've got available (incl BWP) and also searched on the Net, and have found no reference to melanism in Little Auks so far. Leucism is certainly not uncommon in auks, particularly in Puffins it seems. I can remember one all white puffin which was seen on a regular basis off Flamborough in the 80s. The other regular east coast seawatchers I've spoken to (with considerable experience of Little Auks) have never seen anything other than 'standard' Little Auks, so if melanistic birds have occurred, they must be extremely rare.
It looks like the majority of Little Auks have now moved past Northumberland this morning, although small numbers seem to held up further south in the country. Hope you all manage to catch up with a few - they're cracking little birds.
 
Hope that black one gets blown back down again Mark. ;)

Pity it wasnt as close-in as some of the Hartlepool ones......yesterday afternoon some were practically skimming the Headland railings!

We had a walk round the harbour as the daylight was going & saw several resting only metres away, why dont you ever have a camera when you need one...

Seawatch Question
How can one section of the 'same' coastline have massively differing numbers of birds going by, compared to its 'neighbours' only a short distance away ?
eg 2000/Hour compared with 2000/Day etc
SE.
 
When you look at totals for yesterday, it seems clear that there was a rapid decline in numbers as you came down the coast from Hauxley, past Whitburn and on past Hartlepool. I presume the birds passing the Hauxley area on Sunday included a good proportion of the Whitburn birds from Saturday afternoon, plus all the extra ones moving north. At Whitburn, a lot of ours had already begun their journey back north. Once they've got themsleves sorted out after the wind, large numbers seem to gather in small areas and travel 'en-masse'. I just feel sorry for the poor seawatchers further south who have had to be happy with half a dozen!
But roll on Friday - more northerlies!
(ps I've had a long discussion with a friend who's seen a good number of North Pacific auklets in Alaska. He said Crested Auklets look pretty much the same size as Little Auks, have the same whirring flight and look all brown at distance. Ho hum....isn't seawatching a fun, relaxing and non-stressful pursuit!)
 
whitburnmark said:
(ps I've had a long discussion with a friend who's seen a good number of North Pacific auklets in Alaska. He said Crested Auklets look pretty much the same size as Little Auks, have the same whirring flight and look all brown at distance. Ho hum....isn't seawatching a fun, relaxing and non-stressful pursuit!)
Click to expand...

Tell me about it. I seawatch most days but en route to Fair Isle out of Aberdeen in early October I watched a bird keeping pace with the boat at reasonable range for about 10 minutes and I still don't have a clue what it was!

Stephen.
 
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