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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jos Stratford" data-source="post: 3249698" data-attributes="member: 12449">26 June. Cap Rhir, Seawatching Bonanza.Another excellent seawatch, though quite different in nature - a slightly rougher sea, a degree of haze at distance from dawn and a lot more drifting of birds, rather than direct passage to the north. Also a large fishing fleet sitting just to the south - didn't seem to be attracting birds to any degree, but perhaps accounting for the more roving behaviour of birds.From dawn till finish, Cory's Shearwaters and Gannets still accounted for the bulk of passing birds, but numbers of both were considerably lower than the day before, especially from about 7.30 when things slackened off considerably. Still, I was not complaining - four Borolo Shearwaters scootered past in the first hour and, just after the last one of those went flying through, so began an absolutely mad half an hour. First up, a Madeiran Petrel slowly meandering north at 7.25, then three White-faced Storm Petrels together five minutes later, followed by two more another 15 minutes later and another just five minutes after that! Then, the icing on the cake, another two White-faced Storm Petrels appeared at  8.00 and instead of heading north as all the predecessors chose to linger off the headland for about quarter of an hour, even settling on the water on occasion. Absolutely superb.Then it promptly went very quiet, Cory's Shearwaters numbers dropped to a dribble, Gannets became sporadic and not a single petrel or rarer shearwater passed for the next hour and a half. As a parting gift, a final White-faced Storm Petrel passed at 9.30, again lingering and settling on the water as it ambled northwards. Haze and murky offshore conditions killed things off shortly after and at 10 a.m., I departed the headland.What a cracking couple of days I had spent here - 15 Borolo Shearwaters, 14 White-faced Storm Petrels and one Madeiran Petrel!</blockquote>

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