5th April
With the south-easterly blowing with mounting gusto, passage on the sea picked up exponentially compared to recent days. The greatest spectacle were Common Scoters that amounted to 754. It was the first day of good tern passage, and a 50:50 split between Sandwich Terns and 'commic' terns kept us on our toes; with both Common and Arctic Terns present we managed to bring our garden isolation list up by another two species. Manx Shearwaters were ever present throughout the morning in ones and twos, but by the evening larger groups were sighted and brought the days tally to 52. Little Gulls made themselves a prominent feature (although our total didn't come close to some locations on the south coast) and a morning total of 19 was more than doubled in the evening with an additional 32 birds. There were further worthwhile returns from Red-throated Diver (29), Arctic Skua (21), Whimbrel (43), Shoveler (9) and Teal (16). Limited coverage of the land revealed little in numbers and nothing of particular interest.