We set the alarm for 6.30am, just after dawn and I awoke feeling very cold and damp. In a tent on Scilly feeling cold and damp, surely not?
In the night I had slipped off the totally inadequate inflatable mattress I had been given and was lying on the floor through which dew and condensation had permeated onto me, somehow lying half in and half out of the sleeping bag.The interior of the tent had been very hot during the day but at night the temperature had dropped like a stone.
I stepped outside the tent and it was pleasantly mild. How come?
Still, at least I was feeling refreshed from my long sleep if a little damp.The weather forecast was predicting another sunny day with pleasant temperatures so that was something to look forward to
One pelagic down and three to go, would we be lucky and see a South Polar Skua? That was the unspoken hope of all of us. The reason we were here.
Rich joined me outside the tent and we prepared to set off for Porth Cressa Bay while Andy said he would join us later, deciding to sample the dubious delights of the toilet block. We wandered down the steep path and through an awakening Hugh Town.Arriving at the beach we found the tide was out but already there were two ladies swimming in the sea. There was no sign of the tern just some noisy Oystercatchers piping away and the ever present.Herring Gulls stalking a currently deserted beach..
We sat on a bench and waited to see what if anything might transpire.A couple of Sandwich Terns arrived and commenced fishing in the bay.Ten maybe fifteen minutes had passed when I saw another large tern flying over the sea by some rocks to our right. Its flight was markedly different to that of the Sandwich Terns in that it was dipping like a Marsh Tern to pick prey off the surface of the sea.The Sandwich Terns were characteristically diving head first into the water but this tern never did that.
Gull billed Tern
It had to be the Gull billed Tern.
We moved closer and in our bins confirmed it was the Gull billed Tern. It came into the shore although still relatively distant and dropped into the sea to bathe. We made haste down to the beach to get closer but it rose and flew off to our left behind some rocks and never came out the other side. We scanned and scanned but it had somehow given us the slip.Possibly it had gone inland as it had been seen feeding on the airfield yesterday afternoon.
We sat and waited for a possible return but it did not happen.We got chatting to a passerby holding a bag of pain au chocolats who told us they were for sale at the Coop for £1 each but we needed to hurry as they were popular and soon sold out.Neither of us had eaten anything so Rich went to get the pastries from the Coop. Andy joined me at the beach but I had no good news for him
Rich returned having purchased the last three pain au chocolat and a little later the tern also returned but only very briefly before disappearing inland again but at least Andy had seen it
Now with time on our hands we went in search of serious sustenance i.e pasties.The fourth member of our party Graham was on his way on The Scillonian to join us at noon. We returned to the campsite and sorted various things out by which time it was approaching noon. Rich and Andy went down to meet Graham off the ship and give him a hand with his baggage..
I decided to check out the trees on The Garrison behind the campsite.Yesterday Rich and myself had briefly seen a Pied Flycatcher there.
I followed the trails through the dense bushes and trees.Blackberries were already ripening, turning from hard red to softer black and the sky above was azure. It was far from unpleasant.If only I had a decent bed with plump pillows and clean sheets to look forward to everything would be to my total satisfaction but like some malignant monster the tent lurked at the back of my mind.
I walked for quite a time around the bushes and trees but saw nothing more than a Robin and lots of Swallows.A small flicking image caught my eye. Following its course it landed on a bare branch. A Pied Flycatcher at last, which lived up to its name and flew out to snatch flies, never returning to the same perch twice
I stood for almost an hour watching it flying back and fore before returning to the tent and finding it empty lay down in the sun and pretended all was well despite the interior of the tent having gone from the fridge like temperature in the night to that of a hot oven now. I took my shirt off and lay staring at the canvas above me. I called the others on my mobile and discovered they were having an ice cream lunch with Graham down at the harbour.
Eventually my pals arrived back at the tent and we showed Graham his corner of the tent.To say he was underwhelmed would be an understatement but needs must. He thought it might be OK but sounded none too convinced.
We went down to the quay to board the MV Sapphire for our second pelagic cruise and were surprised to discover that although billed as a birder's pelagic we had a shark fisherman on board as well.No worries on my part as to see another shark would be highly acceptable.
There then followed the familiar long sail out to the Bishop Rock Lighthouse and beyond, trailing the ever hungry gulls in our wake, snatching the bread morsels being cast to them from the back of the Sapphire.
Today there was a difference however as there were a large number of Bluefin Tuna present, it was estimated over a 100, which announced themselves by creating huge splashes of spray, called boils, as they pursued their pilchard prey at high speed.They are giant metallic coloured fish, almost dolphin sized.Most of the time all you can see of them is a shark like pointed dorsal fin cutting through the sea but occasionally they leap spectacularly clear of the water in their frenzied feeding.
Now a quick word about the Bluefin Tuna. In 2007 the population was close to collapse but protection measures brought it back from the brink to the extent that in 2021 it was removed from the IUCN's List of Endangered Species. So what happens? This year investigations are being conducted into the potential for commercial and recreational fishing of the tuna.Will we never learn
LEAVE THEM ALONE!
Due to the presence of the feeding tuna today we encountered much greater numbers of large shears and indeed the smaller Manx. Cory's seemed to be everywhere coming at us non stop from all angles both distant and close and it was a similar case with Great Shearwaters although they were only around half the number of Cory's.
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| Cory's Shearwaters |
Sooty Shearwaters, always the least numerous of the shearwaters were also here but as ever just circled the boat once before whizzing away across the sea
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| Sooty Shearwater |
The shearwaters and gulls follow the tuna closely so you know where the tuna are even under water, the birds waiting on the water until another boil occurs, flying to it and fearlessly feeding on the pilchard scraps amongst the frenzied tuna.Bob Flood commented on how well fed the shearwaters looked and I am not surprised as tuna boils were occurring all around us at regular intervals
Eventually we found ourselves over the same reef we had stopped over yesterday and came to a stop.The pungent chum was dispersed and the slick slowly formed, drifting away from the boat as a silky smooth patch on the surface of the sea.
The shark fisherman cast his lines over the side and we sat and waited. Us for birds he for a shark.
After the usual wait of thirty or so minutes a few Storm Petrels came to investigate the slick.Tiny black birds with a white rump, they speed busily across the wave tops, disappearing and re-appearing in the wave troughs, dodging hither and thither, hard to follow as they search for food.
A Pomarine Skua, in adult or almost adult plumage came to check on us, circling in the sun before cruising away further out to sea, its prominent long, curiously flattened central tail feathers replicating spoons
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| Pomarine Skua |
I cannot recall just when the shark fisherman hooked a shark but I was standing at the back of the boat and he was further up on the port side his rod bent almost double. In the course of playing the shark he stood on the bench that runs around the sides of the boat and slowly the shark pulled him towards me.
Eventually he was stood over me, heaving on the rod and line as slowly the shark came into view. Bizarrely the hooked shark was followed to the surface by another which I learnt from the fisherman often happens as the hooked shark emits a form of distress signal which attracts other sharks. In the course of our conversation he told me, in between violent heaves on the rod, that Blue Sharks only come to these waters between May and October when the water is warm enough and then retreat out to the mid Atlantic. By tagging them something has been learnt about their movements, with tagged blue sharks being found off The Azores and even as far as the coast of South Carolina in the USA.
The shark dragged him away back up the side of the boat to amidships and was eventually hauled aboard.
.JPG)
A shout came, from, I think Lee Gregory, at the back of the Sapphire
Large Skua!
Could it be? There was a mad scramble as everyone had the same thought. Grab a camera.I was stranded amidships with just my bins, my camera still on the bench at the back of the boat. I had to make a decision. Forget the photo opportunity just set eyes on the skua. The most important thing now was to see the skua as it could be the holy grail we sought. Thankfully I got it in my bins, balancing on the rocking boat and trying not to tread on anyone's toes.
Brown and bulky it could surely only be a Great Skua or a South Polar Skua.No one at this moment knew for certain.
A few managed to get images of it as it passed someway off the back of the boat and powered through the milling gulls, sweeping past them and away.It was gone in a minute. Incidentally only one of the previous sightings this year was of one circling the boat all the others behaved exactly as this one did.In and out without stopping.
Now came the inquest and examination of the images on the back of cameras. Graham who is an extremely good photographer had got a superb image of it. Having seen a South Polar Skua on a previous Scilly pelagic trip this year he was reasonably certain this was one. The person to give confirmation and a final verdict was Bob Flood, a world expert on seabirds and currently stood at the wheelhouse door.
Graham took his camera down to Bob and showed him the image on the back of his camera. For minutes the rest of us waited as Bob closely scrutinised the image and then to much rejoicing pronounced that in his opinion it was definitely a South Polar Skua. No one was going to dispute his verdict that's for sure.
Most of the diagnostic features were present in Graham's image, a small bill and head in relation to the body, lack of dark cap on the crown, uniform brown upperparts and upperwing, short tail and slim build compared to a Great Skua.
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| South Polar Skua c.Graham Jepson |
South Polar Skuas are found in the southern hemisphere breeding along the coastline and islands of Antarctica.Non breeding birds disperse across the southern ocean ranging from the Antarctic pack ice to sub antarctic regions. A minority reach the northeast Atlantic, usually between August and October and this is probably the source of the birds around The Isles of Scilly
But for the shark I would have been in position to get my own images but really it was of little consequence when I could truly say I had seen a South Polar Skua. A new world and British tick for me, Andy and Rich.. We had taken a huge gamble and it had paid off and how. Even Bob Flood recognised this and came down to the back of the boat to congratulate Andy who had organised the trip and persuaded us to join him.
This individual was deemed to be a different bird to those seen earlier this month. I believe five have been seen this year now and four the year previously
For me there is only one that matters.
Needless to say a celebratory drink in The Atlantic was considered the appropriate finale to an unforgettable day.
Now for the tent!
Seen from MV Sapphire
1700-2100hrs
South Polar Skua 1
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