Seaford Seawatch

 With a nice southerly wind predicted and plenty of Brent Geese going through all week while I've been at work, I thought a morning Seawatch would be in order and so I found myself at Splash Point, Seaford at 6.15am. The wind was stronger than predicted and more of a South-easterly which was pleasing!! The Sea was very rough, but it wasn't particularly cold and I was fully Balaclavaed up with several thermal layers as well. 

Overall it was a good morning, variety was low but quantity high, the stand out figure was 1500+ Brent Geese which came through in flocks close into the shore, ranging in size from 5 up to 100+, the other notable movement was Gulls, with loads of Kittiwakes going through distantly, I made no attempt to count them but were loads, goodly amounts of Common Gull and Black-headed Gull and 50+ Med Gulls mostly in 1s or 2s but towards the end and few flocks through of 8 or 9 again a lot of these were along the beach with one mixed flock of BHG and Med Gulls actually flying inland behind me!

The Bird of the watch though was my first Skua of the year at about 7.50AM a Dark Phase Arctic which came through with a particularly large pulse of Kittiwakes and could be seen harassing them, quite distant though and I couldn't find it in the Camera's viewfinder 😢 other notable sightings were 20ish Divers all I could ID were Red-throated all were distant though and the pics I did get were pants!! 17 Common Scoter (no Pics), 2 Great Crested Grebes and a few Cormorants, told you there wasn't much variety.

Taking Pictures on a Seawatch is quite tricky, but the Brents and some of the Gulls were reasonably close a few😂😂😂 below!!

Rough old morning

Couple of Divers (told you they were distant)

Med Gull

Brent Geese

Med Gull

Brents building up

Brent getting closer

Brent Geese with Newhaven in the background

Black-headed Gull

The Brents are coming

Common Gull

Diver above the Windfarm

Fulmar

Flock of BHG with a single Med Gull

They reckon Birders are mad!!!!😂

Kittiwakes mainly 1st winters

Med Gull

Common Gull, distinguishable from Kittiwakes at a distant by there white wingtips

Herring Gull

Flock of Med Gulls

Med Gull getting Closer

Fulmar

Herring Gull, hundreds of these along the beach

Think this pic shows the size of the waves

First winter Kittiwake about the only one that came close!!

So about 10.30 with the Brent's and Gulls drying up and me entering the final stages of hyperthermia I  called it a day, I was gonna go home, but then I bumped into another couple of Birders who mentioned they had seen a Little Gull on the meanders at the Cuckmere, it's been a long time since I've been up close with my favourite Gull so nipped round there, did I find it? Well that's another Blog post so you'll have to wait til tomorrow to find out!! (give us a break I've sorted through over 3000 pics) !!

I was quite surprised there weren't a few other sea-watchers present given the forecast!! Think there was a guy in the small shelter, but no one else about!!