It was a tired crew that work early the next morning to the sound of the herring Gull early morning wake - up calls on the roof of our accommodation. Making our way to the quay for an 08.00 start we were still bleary eyed but excited about what the day could bring.
As we steamed out to the open sea a group of gulls followed us and among them was a juvenile Yellow-legged Gull. Another uncommon bird off Hilbre.
As we stoped and started chumming it was soon apparent that the overnight south westerly winds had done the business. There were birds everywhere with rafts of Shearwaters sat on the water - including Sooty, Great and Cory's but best of all Bob shouted everyone one to get on one particular shearwater as it took flight and this proved to be a Scopoli's Shearwater. A lifer for me as well as the other guys. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo as I was to busy watching the bird. This was a bird I was hoping to get after a couple of near misses last year when I twitched the Red-footed Booby (see here). We'd seen several possible candidates but nothing confirmed. The Scilly's pelagics team have see numerous Scopoli's over the last couple of years and it takes a lot for Bob Flood to get excited but a melanistic Cory's Shearwater had him bouncing! To quote Bob:
Melanistic Cory's observed from pelagic trip out of Scilly on Sunday. Am aware of 2 reported by Joel Bried et al. 2015, Canaries & Azores, & have photos of singles off Lanzarote 2010 (B Rodríguez) Portugal 2021 (T Guerreiro). Keen to hear of other documented records.
The day got even better. Wilson's Petrel were literally pouring in thick and fast and it soon became obvious we were on course to beat the Scilly's pleagic day record. Infact we ended up beating the all time record for Wislon's petrels in British and Irish waters by a huge margin. A massive total of 105 birds were recorded and this was a minimum! An incredible spectacle.
At one point we had 14 Wilson's petrels feeding together in the chum slick. Again a mixture of small and large birds with different flight and feeding characteristics. With European Storm petrels also in the slick a good comparison could be made. See photos below:
The stars of the trip were obviously the Wilson's petrels but we also had good numbers of Sooty, Cory's and great Shearwaters.
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| Great Shearwaters 'rafting' with a Sooty Shearwater in the middle |
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| Above: Cory's Shearwaters |
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| Above: Great Shearwaters |
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| Sooty Shearwater |
At one point we just stood and watched as Wilson's after Wilson's, attracted by the smell, flew in to join the slick! What a day.
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| RBA report for the day. |
It was Chris's birthday whilst we were away and as an annual visitor to St Agnes he arranged for Joe to drop us off so we could have a few drinks at the Turks head. What we hadn't realised was the annual St Agnes fair and round the island boat was also taking place so St Agnes was heaving! We couldn't get any where near the pub but Joe had told us 600 people were being taken off by17.30 so we had a walk around the island waiting for the crowd to thin out. Unfortunately we couldn't get any food but luckily the pub had a few sausage rolls left to add to our already high intake of foods we'd probably not consider healthy at home!
Chris had also arranged for John Peacock to take us back to St Mary's at 9pm and it was a very happy and slightly inebriated crew that disembarked straight to the Mermaid. Monday evening was to be our last pelagic of the trip so at lest we could get a lie in the next morning........
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