August 29th

We arrived at the Towers at 0530 in heavy drizzle which luckily cleared away soon on the strong northerly wind. We had an excellent five hour seawatch with nine other birders and counted birds mostly flying west but with some returning back east later in the morning. Birds we saw included 1 Common Sandpiper, 20 Oystercatchers, 41 Arctic Skuas, 54 Sandwich Terns, 29 Common Terns, 2 Arctic Terns (176th), 21 Kittiwakes, 13 Common Scoter, 113 Gannets, 31 Great Skuas, 1 Grey Plover, 58 Knot, 1 Whimbrel, 2 Balearic Shearwaters (177th), 5 Teal, 3 Manx Shearwaters, 1W and 2E, (178th), 13 Fulmars, 2 juvenile Long-tailed Skuas (179th), 1 large auk E, 29 Dunlin, 6 Sanderling, 1 Black Tern and 1 Little Tern.

Arctic Skuas

After Matt and I had left Marc Heath stayed there until midday and added another 11 Great Skuas, 3 Arctic Skuas, 4 Wigeon, 1 Shoveler, 8 Teal, 1 Fulmar, 7 Gannets and 4 summer plumaged Black-tailed Godwits flying W (180th).

In the afternoon Chris Tedder saw 1 Ruff (181st) at Coldharbour.

Ruff - Chris Tedder