A short trip to Roche's Point

Today I decided to head down to Roches Point.



I stopped briefly at Rostellan Lake near Whitegate to give the lake a scan. Here I had a nice adult ring billed gull, which was a first for me at this site. Upon scanning the far end of the lake I noticed a large flock of hirundines which turned out to consist of approx' 30-40 sand martins. Also at the lake was a lone, tame whooper swan which has taken up residence with the local mutes in the past few months.




I was surprised to find absolutely no med' gulls between here and Roches point. Although, admitedly I didn't check very thoroughly as I was under time constraints. Upon reaching Roches Point, I was met with a very strong Southerly gale. Unfortunately this seemed to have dispersed any of the black redstarts that I had here recently with Harry H and Brian L. Having checked the point for passerines to no avail, I decided to give the sea a scan. There were a lot of gannets moving offshore, as well as 4 common scoter, and 1, possibly 2 manx shearwater, at best. On the way to the tip of the point I had a nice, close female merlin which flew by on the wind. I did another scan from the lighthouse itself where I had a minimun of 7 sandwich terns diving offshore.

When I was at Rostellan Lake, I noticed a really tame song thrush which was just standing still on the lawn next to me, so I decided to practice my digiscoping techniques (Larger image here: http://i39.tinypic.com/2po6zd2.jpg). Just pretend it's a hermit thrush or something :P

Posted below is a very sorry excuse for a record shot of the ring billed gull :P