Seawatching - whats it all about ? (1 Viewer)

This year Scillonian Pelagic is on Sunday 10th August, it leaves Penzance Harbour at the ungodly hour of 5:00 am returning about 6-7 pm that evening. It costs £85.

(Barring any hitches that is...last years was cancelled due to problems with the boats engines!)

The real prize on this trip is the prospect is seeing 1 or more Wilson`s Petrels, which are seen most years and are still an extremely rare species from land in the UK. Other noteworthy birds likely to be seen include Sabines Gull`s (no doubt not so prized this year after the photogenic Lowestoft bird!) good numbers of Storm Petrels and the chance of other seabirds such as Balearic, Sooty, Cory`s and Great Shearwater. Arctic Skua`s and Great Skua`s will usually be seen at the back of the boat and there is the chance (though no guarantee) of the rarer Skuas; Pomarine and Long-tailed.

Many people will be hoping for a repeat of the 2001 trip which resulted in views of a Fea`s Petrel tho` I suspect we will all be going home disappointed on that score!!

I've never been on a Pelagic trip,but read somewhere that the normal procedure is to leave scopes behind,as they are impractical on board.
Any thoughts?

Hi Starain,
On behalf of all of the Moderators and Admin, welcome to Bird Forum. I think you will find lots to interest you here and look forward to more posts. If you are going seawatching, either from land or a boat, let us know how you get on.

Hi Grousemore, many years ago (1987 I think) I went out with Peter Harrison on one of the Chalice Pelagics and can confirm that scopes are mostly useless - unless you have a gyroscopic stabiliser! Most birds were very close to the boat anyway (usually within 50yds), although I don't expect the views from the Scillonian will be quite as 'intimate'....

Hi Grousemore,

Again from my California experience scopes were actually banned from all the trips I went on. Actually I suspect it was the tripods that were the problem. Being at sea is tricky enough without the extra hazard of tripping over tripod legs!

I always took a pair of 15x stabiliser binoculars. They worked really well, although they are a tad expensive.

used to go seawatching at Seaforth merseyside,until the hide blew away in a force 10 gale (oh the perils of birding),had some cracking days their though,100s of leaches,lt skuas and sabs in oct 88,,images ingrained in my mind!!