Saturday 19 August 2017

Scilly Pelagic no 9 - classic pelagic magic!

The wind had dropped from the previous evening, a gentle 15 mph westerly beckoned with a 2 metre swell and the weather was set fair! Hardly t-shirt weather but blue skies beckoned early on! Nearly 'all change'  on the crew scene, fitting nicely into the pano-phone shot!


And all eyes focused on the horizon! Eagle eyed Bob and Bella ready to sniff out those Dolphins?



I've posted far too many Cory's Shearwater images but they were once again showing well with 14 seen plus 2 Great Shearwaters...


Always pleasing to see the tracking set to ignore temporary obstructions here!



A backlit Sooty Shearwater passing close by...

 The ever present European Storm Petrels, seen on every trip out and often overlooked as they not exactly easy catch and the light was just about good enough to capture them!






But once again, the prize and 9th consecutive BIG 3 result - Wilson's Petrel (2 seen today) Pretty obliging too!


Spoiling us with classic upperwing opportunities!






Even managed to catch a couple of Common Dolphins!




A new bird for the trip (on the way back in) was this juv/1w Mediterranean Gull...




Kept us amused for 5 mins or so...




An early start for what is often 'Special Sunday' but is destined to be 'Very Wet Sunday' whatever happens!