Friday 07/10/2011 Cap Gris Nez

View from sea watching position

 We met at Greatstone with a North Westerly blowing to go to France for a days sea watching at Le Clipon at 03.00 to get the 04.20 ferry which was delayed till 05.40 a bad start. After a full engish on the ferry dawn started to break so we went up on deck to stare into the gloom, where we rewarded with a few Gannets, 6 Sooty Shearwaters, 2 Manx and 3 Balearic, 1 Red-throated Diver, 4 Bonxies and 1 Arctic Skua and as we docked a few Meditteranean Gulls.
After disembarking we quickly made our way to Le Clipon about 2 miles from site we were stopped by security who told us Le Clipon is now out of bounds unless you have special permission because of building a refinery there. Our second set back of the day!
A decision was quickly made to move on to Cap Gris Nez and as Tony and Chis had been there before by 09.00 they had got me and Paul threre.
After climbing down the grassy cliff below the view point(which was easy. Its climbing back up thats hard!) we were quickly being amazed by the number of birds passing and the quality of the ligh. While there we had totals of:
Bonxie: 171
Arctic Skua: 71
Pomarine Skua: 13
Long-tailed Skua: 9
Balearic Shearwater: 32
Manx Shearwater: 29
Sooty Shearwater: 22
Red-throated Diver: 9
Black-throated Diver 5
Gannets: 1000+
Little Gull: 31
Common Scoter: 725
Kittiwake: 55
Comic Terns: 200+
Sandwich Terns: 100+
Black Tern: 1
Auk sp: 500+
Grey Wagtail: 1
Dunlin: 8
Oystercatcher: 1
Brent Goose: 1
Medditteranean Gull: numerous
We know we missed loads birds that were just to close under the cliff, lots more that were just to far out to ID,  those that went passed while we being mesmerised ,staring through our scopes at the huge spoons on some of the Poms the quality of the light on summer plumaged Divers was awesome and the general spectacle of this tremendous passage.
A brilliant sea watch. Who knows what the totals would have been had we not lost the first 2 hours of light.

Juvenile Long-tailed Skua

Arctic Skua

Superb adult Pomarine Skuas still with spoons

Pomarine Skua

Balearic Shearwater

Tony, Chis and Paul

In the fields behind Cap Gris Nez we saw Hen Harrier, 2+Common Buzzards, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel 2 and 200+ Meditteranean Gulls. On the drive back to the port we added a Marsh Harrier and Lapwing and a Merlin which I missed.
Darkness was falling rapidly as the ferry left for home but we still managed to see :
Leach's Petrel 1 at the harbour entrance.
Bonxie: 18
Arctic Skua 6
Manx Shearwater: 2
Shag: 1 in the harbour.
A fantastic days birding in great company. A special thanks to Tony for organising the trip and doing all the driving.