A bad start to the morning with fog then mist and heavy drizzle at Fly Flatts but clearing by 0715 hrs
to leave a breezy W>4 at 9 degrees with broken cloud and some sunshine.
A walk the full length of the west bank proved fruitful finding a single drake Common Scoter at the north end of the water which I could easily have missed scoping from the south end due to the height of the waves. Scoters never fail to appear at this site in June so it was no real surprise to find one.
A busy sky this morning with a mega number of Swifts throughout all slowly drifting >S whilst 12 LBB and 2 Herring gull headed >SW. Raptors were up in the wind with 3 Kestrel, 1 Buzzard, 1 Sparrowhawk and a very fast moving brown Peregrine(juv).
Waders were thin on the ground with 3 Common Sandpiper, plus a unfledged juv, along with 1 Oystercatcher, 2 Curlew and 3 Lapwing whilst 3 Golden Plover flew over very high and fast >N.
Same forecast for tomorrow but visibility looking not up to scratch.
I spend a lot of time out and about looking through the gulls and came up with no specials so far this year other than Yellow Legged Herring. Ironically, last night I checked the RNLI lifeboat launches and found Ilfracombe lifeboat had a call out. Going onto their station live webcam to see the boat a Caspian gull was on a lamppost by the lifeboat station. Some poor pics below taken off the computer.
They may be common down there in Devon but I've never been so don't know.
BS