While it's always over my shoulder (and I've skirted close by on many occasions of late), yesterday was the first day I've been out onto the actual Brigg in weeks; probably the longest time I've been away from it since moving here almost six years ago, so it was always going to be an overdue pleasure. With the sustained extreme conditions of the last week or so having finally subsided, it seemed like a perfect time to drop onto the beach, walk the tideline, and then head onto the Brigg via the Bay Corner. As well as being desperate for some real salty-aired birding, after such meteorological events it's always worth checking to see what's been washed up, and so a couple of hours work were ignored and priorities were realigned.
After passing a couple of distant dog walkers on the beach, I had the bay and the Brigg completely to myself for the three hours I was out there; it never ceases to amaze me the number of times that happens, but I'm not complaining. A young Grey Seal was snoozing by the seawatching hide - see above (but had gone when I passed by an hour or so later), and as well as a Great Northern and lots of Red-throated Divers, there were hundreds of auks in the outer bay and a good selection of ducks - the best of which was a male Velvet Scoter, occasionally associating with eight Common Scoters...
...plus 55 Wigeon, four Teal, two Eiders and this, the distinctive wc-eend Dutch subspecies of Toilet Duck....
... indicative not only of our trashing of the oceans, but also where the prevailing winds and weather came from last week.
The high tideline - beneath clay cliffs battered and weakened by the waves in recent days - revealed a total of four dead Guillemots, all uninjured, un-oiled and with sharp breastbones, carrying no fat at all; tell-tale signs of starvation, a sad reality of the preceding conditions.
Of other finds, happily there was little in the way of the mass strandings of marine life reported further down the coast, with moderate numbers Cuttlefish and Razorfish and small numbers of bivalves; otherwise, the best finds were two ray egg cases (or Mermaid's Purses if you prefer), both of which are, I think, Thornback Ray (although happy to stand corrected!).
Today was a whole other level, however - see next post.....
