Sooty Shearwater
After an exceptional season and many memorable trips, last week saw the last of our
YCN Seabird and Whale Adventures out of Staithes, North Yorkshire for '24. I led four in the week (long trips on 16th, 18th & 20th, with a shorter one also on 20th), all of which were very productive, and all in different ways.
A (particularly dark) Balearic Shearwater with Manx Shearwaters, 18th
As well as the cetaceans (see upcoming post), seabirds were fantastic, in both quantity and quality, with many hundreds of terns, good numbers of
skuas on each trip (including double figures of
Arctics on each, a handful of
Bonxies, and a
Pomarine on 16th),
Caspian Gulls on 16th and 18th (two),
Little Gulls (peaking at 25 on 16th), a
Velvet Scoter on 20th,
wildfowl on the move, as well as big numbers of
auks, Gannets and
gulls...
Manx Shearwater
... but the show-stealers were
Shearwaters. August and September have seen variably strong numbers of them on our 'patch' off the coast (and I was lucky enough to be guiding when
a Great put in an extraordinary performance a few weeks ago), and last week they were especially abundant - dozens of
Sootys,
Balearics on 18th (two) and 20th, and - most unusually given the time of year - very big numbers of
Manxies.
We expect them in two to three figures on our trips earlier in the season, when they're traditionally at their most numerous off the Yorkshire coast, July being the peak month; from then onwards, however, it's usually a steady decline until few, if any, by now. However, for whatever reasons (for another time!), we'd hundreds in rafts a few miles offshore, peaking at at least 470 on 18th.
Also unusually, all three species gave great close views, often drifting around the boat in nonchalant fashion - giving our guests fantastic experiences with these often locally scarce, shy, long-distance migrant seabirds.
