There were again strong NW winds in the North Sea. It's the best seawatching condition for us! It was thus easy to know what to do this weekend : The Clipon (Dunkerque) of course! I was there on Saturday from sunrise to sunshine. The strong wind arrived on Friday late afternoon and the local seawatchers had already great sightings : 6 sooty, 14 manx and 2 balearic shearwaters, 3 leach's storm-petrel, 2 pomarines, 1 long-tailed and 51 arctic skua in a few hours.
On Saturday, the numbers were not very high but the quality was there with lots of good birds very close. That's the advantadge of a big jetty, the disadvantadge is that we are also close to the waves and this time, we had a really huge one, far bigger than the other just after the passage of a sabine's gull...we were soaked through the skin had to run after somes bags that were carrying by the several tens cm of waters, juste before they fell into the sea! There was lots of water on the jetty and we had to run after somes bags and other stuff before they fell into the sea! My camera was out of my bag, I tried to protect it and miraculously it still works well!!
A video of us watching the sabine's gull along the jetty juste before that huge wave :
Here are the totals (1st number = Clipon, 2nd = Cape Gris-Nez) :
Red-throated Diver 20 36 (good numbers for september!!)
Great crested Grebe 8 5
Red-necked Grebe 3 1
Black-necked Grebe 1
Fulmar 32 5
Sooty Shearwater 74 17
Manx Shearwater 10 10
Balearic Shearwater 4
Leach's Storm-Petrel 21 3 (we expected bigger number of this species)
British Storm-Petrel 1 (very well seen, my best sighting of the species here!)
Gannet 1457 3590
Brent Goose 187 184
Shelduck 5 12
Wigeon 27 44
Gadwall 2
Teal 43 5
Pintail 3 13
Shoveler 5 2
Eider 43 24
Common Scoter 353 702
Red-breasted Merganser 4
Peregrine Falcon 1 1
Oystercatcher 21 29
Ringed Plover 6
Grey Plover 62 2
Knot 5
Sanderling 50 3
Purple Sandpiper 1
Dunlin 61 57
Bar-tailed Godwit 162
Curlew 12 2
Redshank 1
Common Sandpiper 1
Turnstone 2
Red-necked Phalarope 1
Grey Phalarope 2 1
Pomarine Skua 19 19
Arctic Skua 102 169
Long-tailed Skua 9 4
Bonxie 162 309
Skua sp. 6 2
Mediterranean Gull 1
Little Gull 47 42
Sabine's Gull 7 6
Kittiwake 108 224
Sandwich Tern 275 428
Common Tern 695 466
Arctic Tern 18 13
Little Tern 1 2
Black Tern 36 8
Guillemot / Razorbill 17 17
Manx shearwater - Clipon - François Doyen
Gannet - Clipon - François Doyen
intermediate phase Northern Fulmar - Clipon - François Doyen
Sabine's Gull just before the huge wave - Clipon - François Doyen
Fulmar 64 2
Sooty shearwater 7 8
Manx shearwater 3
Balearic shearwater 1
Leach's storm-petre 3 1
British storm-petrel 1 1
Gannet 1700
Common scoter 806
Grey phalarope 2
Arctic Skua 37 56
Long-tailed skua 3 2
Bonxie 71 140
Sabine's gull 2 7
More very good pics will probably appear one day here : http://www.leclipon.com/ and
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Seawatch-Clipon-Gris-Nez/124337474283129?ref=ts
No comments:
Post a Comment