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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Berry Head, Devon - today (1 Viewer)

For those wondering, I went to Berry head from 06:30 to circa 09:15 on the Saturday and saw circa 10 Manx! then went to Farmoor for Black Terns and dipped, not a great day! Went to Pendeen on Sunday and had two Greats and one Corys, lots of miles and little reward, also done 6 hours on Sunday for the falcon with the expected result! But if you don't try then you won't see anything!
 
For those wondering, I went to Berry head from 06:30 to circa 09:15 on the Saturday and saw circa 10 Manx! then went to Farmoor for Black Terns and dipped, not a great day! Went to Pendeen on Sunday and had two Greats and one Corys, lots of miles and little reward, also done 6 hours on Sunday for the falcon with the expected result! But if you don't try then you won't see anything!

Quite right Cliff....no gain we'out pain! Indeed the more "fruitless" hours you put in the "sweeter" the eventual find! I can recall (many years ago now) with a crew of three taking a speculative (weather forecast looking promising) 'through the night' (c10 hour round trip) early August from London to Porthgwarra. Cleaning up on the perhaps hundred odd Cory's that were present, with two out of the three managing to "grip" off the driver with a single GS! It was a "memorable" return drive...mostly silent with palpable angst from the aforesaid, interspersed with "teeth gnashing" and much suppressed mirth (and tears) from the "grippers"....a-a-a-h those were the days!
 
Larry did you see that there was a Great Shearwater sat on the sea off Portland Bill yesterday aft ?? :)

Ah, no hadn't seen that. I didn't go, but would have only been there in the morning if I had gone, so would have missed it anyway. One day...... I'll have to leave something for when foreign travel's no longer possible I suppose!
 
I'm sure these large Shearwaters only used to be gettable a couple of days per year, now it seems they can be seen for the better part of a month. Is this a fair perception? If so what's changed?


The number of food-distributing pelagics for one. In much the same way as Nuthatches have probably spread through garden feeders into Scotland in the last few years. Alter a bird's regular food supply and you may alter its distribution.

Just a guess mind.
 
Spent an hour and a half at Berry Head this morning from 05.50. Sea was pretty much calm - no white horses at all! A few Gannets diving close in and a Dolphin was all of interest early, but things livened up with a small passage of Common (Commic) Terns. In a 20 minute period 7 Arctic Skuas went past, the penultimate one accompanied by a Pomarine Skua. At one point the Arctic took exception to it's slightly larger cousin and made a brief pass at it from below. There was also a smattering of Manx Shearwaters with one Balearic Shearwater trailing the last group. A good sized group of Dolphins kept me amused for a while, but with nothing further going past I headed off.
 
The number of food-distributing pelagics for one. In much the same way as Nuthatches have probably spread through garden feeders into Scotland in the last few years. Alter a bird's regular food supply and you may alter its distribution.

Just a guess mind.

Unfortunately the amount of food distributed from boats is going to be literally a drop in the ocean ...

Not a lot of chumming goes on, and what does would be a miniscule/negligible addition to the biomass/available food out there.

Nice guess tho!
 
Unfortunately the amount of food distributed from boats is going to be literally a drop in the ocean ...

Not a lot of chumming goes on, and what does would be a miniscule/negligible addition to the biomass/available food out there.

Nice guess tho!

That was the bit I wasn't sure about. Are most pelagics just boat trips, without any attempt to lure the species (my only experience was on the Scillonian in 1998)?

There's vastly more fish guts chucked overboard from fishing boats (hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tonnes per year), than there is from birding boats (a few dozen kg per year). The 'chum' component in seabird diets is minuscule and totally insignificant, compared to what fishing boats have been chucking out for decades.
 
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