Sunday 30 March 2014

Coast Drive Fulmar

Dungeness - 0615-0745hrs - mild, hazy, light airs - Another early morning crack at the sea from the concrete road was nowhere near as interesting as yesterday, although a small group of Eiders were seen again. Totals up-Channel as follows: Red-throated Diver 11, Fulmar 2, Gannet 22, Brent 36, Shelduck 2, Eider 3, Common Scoter 95, Kittiwake 15, Sandwich Tern 8. The Glaucous Gull flew by, while 8 Med Gulls and 15 Sandwich Terns passed west
Lade - The lakes were quiet this morning but on the gravel pit the Black-headed Gulls were back on the island along with six Meds. Working in the garden today the `yowing` call of Med Gulls was regularly heard overhead.
Dungeness  - 1550-1650hrs - An afternoon hour staring at a mill-pond calm sea totalled 8 Red-throats, 2 Mergansers and 43 Brents up-Channel. Fifty grebes were on the sea and two Harbour Porpoises in it. Dungeness always feels a bit spooky with no wind and looking out to sea into the haze you couldn't differentiate the sea from the sky at the horizon, if you catch my drift...
Driving home along Coast Drive I followed a Fulmar which flew arrow straight above the road at about 50 feet, as I turned into Taylor Road the seabird continued on towards Greatstone, how weird...

2 comments:

  1. Paul,
    My son and I were fishing on the RMC, at Seabrooke, in early March and saw a Fulmar fly straight up the canal, towards Hythe. It required a second look to ensure I wasn't hallucinating! Nice record of an unusual encounter. I also have a single record from our West Dumpton garden - July 2007 - as a bird skimmed low over the field beyond our boundary hedge. They are capable of very strange behavior - your encounter being the latest in an ever growing catalogue?

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  2. Dylan, I remember during a former life in deepest Bedfordshire during the `80s a Fulmar being picked up in a street in Kempston. After spending the night in a shoe box it was taken up to the Norfolk coast the following day and released, apparently none the worse for its inland excursion - strange indeed...

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