It has been relatively quiet so far but I’m still a wee bit surprised to see that I have only recorded 23 species while sea watching so far, even though sea watches constitute 112 out of my 186 records and all 13 of my complete lists! Comparing this to my 2012 BirdTrack data (August-December) where I recorded 676 records, 25 complete lists and 51 species, it means I have still plenty of seabirds to catch up with later in the year.
There is no surprise with the species that I have recorded on 100% of my complete lists, herring, common and black-headed gulls with red-throated divers next at 92.3%. I always thought that cormorants area regular sight everyday but in fact I have ‘only’ recorded them on just over three quarters of my sea watches.
Species
|
2013 %
|
2012 %
|
Black-headed Gull
|
100
|
88
|
Common Gull
|
100
|
48
|
Herring Gull
|
100
|
100
|
Red-throated Diver
|
92.3
|
80
|
Cormorant
|
76.9
|
80
|
Great Black-backed Gull
|
76.9
|
76
|
Common Scoter
|
61.5
|
76
|
Shelduck
|
46.2
|
16
|
Brent Goose
|
30.8
|
44
|
Wigeon
|
23.1
|
44
|
Fulmar
|
15.4
|
12
|
Gannet
|
15.4
|
68
|
Great Crested Grebe
|
15.4
|
24
|
Curlew
|
7.7
|
4
|
Dunlin
|
7.7
|
N/A
|
Eider
|
7.7
|
12
|
Guillemot
|
7.7
|
64
|
Kittiwake
|
7.7
|
48
|
Lesser Black-backed Gull
|
7.7
|
20
|
Little Auk
|
7.7
|
4
|
Mallard
|
7.7
|
16
|
Shoveler
|
7.7
|
16
|
Velvet Scoter
|
7.7
|
4
|
[unidentified auk]
|
7.7
|
28
|
[unidentified diver]
|
7.7
|
8
|
Again there is no real surprise with the most common duck seen, common scoter (61.5%) but rather more unusually shelduck is the next most common duck with 46.2% while I have had the same amount of records of mallard, eider and shoveler as I have of velvet scoter (7.7%).
 |
| Sea watching in Hemsby |
A strange omission from the list so far in 2013 is teal, normally a pretty regular sight on sea watches, perhaps this cold snap will shake things up a bit.
Below are a couple tables, again using the BirdTrack data but this time looking at the actual numbers of birds I have recorded on my patch during sea watches. First are the 20 most abundant species, although second place in 2012 belongs to ‘commic’ terns, mainly due to my laziness but also on one day I had over 1500 fly past in one hour!!
Top 10 Species (2013)
|
Count
|
Cormorant
|
2006
|
Red-throated Diver
|
317
|
Black-headed Gull
|
188
|
Common Scoter
|
84
|
Brent Goose
|
55
|
Common Gull
|
51
|
Shelduck
|
45
|
Great Black-backed Gull*
|
20
|
Herring Gull*
|
16
|
Wigeon
|
12
|
Top 20 Species (2012)
|
Count
|
Cormorant
|
3453
|
"Commic" Tern
|
2626
|
Gannet
|
2218
|
Common Scoter
|
1669
|
Red-throated Diver
|
1209
|
Kittiwake
|
502
|
Wigeon
|
486
|
Teal
|
400
|
Brent Goose
|
321
|
Guillemot
|
298
|
Black-headed Gull*
|
266
|
Little Tern
|
254
|
Sandwich Tern
|
143
|
Common Tern
|
110
|
Eider
|
97
|
Mediterranean Gull
|
60
|
Little Gull
|
51
|
Arctic Skua
|
40
|
Shelduck
|
30
|
Dunlin
|
25
|
*These figures are skewed as I didn’t always make counts for the gull species and in 2012 I didn't make any counts for common, herring, LBB and GBB gulls.
I then looked at what was hard to see and rare on patch during my sea watches.
Bottom 10 species (2013)
|
Count
|
Curlew
|
1
|
Guillemot
|
1
|
Kittiwake
|
1
|
Lesser Black-backed Gull
|
1
|
Little Auk
|
1
|
Velvet Scoter
|
1
|
Fulmar
|
2
|
Shoveler
|
2
|
Gannet
|
3
|
Great Crested Grebe
|
4
|
Bottom 20 Species (2012)
|
Count
|
Little Auk
|
1
|
Manx Shearwater
|
1
|
Puffin
|
1
|
Curlew
|
2
|
Pomarine Skua
|
2
|
Slavonian Grebe
|
2
|
Sooty Shearwater
|
2
|
Grey Phalarope
|
3
|
Red-breasted Merganser
|
3
|
Arctic Tern
|
4
|
Great Northern Diver
|
4
|
Great Skua
|
4
|
Tufted Duck
|
4
|
Velvet Scoter
|
4
|
Fulmar
|
5
|
Scaup
|
5
|
Shag
|
5
|
Goldeneye
|
9
|
Shoveler
|
11
|
Great Crested Grebe
|
12
|
Anyway, enough of this waffling and geekery, I will leave it to yourselves to find out the delights and geeky facts that are hidden within your data on BirdTrack!
http://blx1.bto.org/birdtrack/
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