Another year almost over.
East of town one of the ports was full of Kittiwakes.
000’s of them but no Red-leggeds sadly.
The same influx happened 2 years ago at the same place.
Not much else around: White-tailed Eagle, Harlequin Duck, Glaucous-winged Gull, Black-necked Grebe……….
There were absolutely loads of Kittiwakes east of town today as well as seemingly equally large numbers of Common Gulls.
All the Kittiwakes that came close enough to ID were Black-legged. They were a scruffy bunch.
Hopefully they’ll stick around and I can find a Red-legged one.
Nasty weather but quite a few birds were present on the east coast around to Onuma: Mountain Hawk-Eagle, Peregrine, White-tailed and Steller’s Sea Eagles, Eastern Buzzard, Harlequin Duck, Red-necked Grebe etc. At Onuma it was very quiet in the late afternoon gloom but Smew and Goshawk were both around.
There were about 100 Black-legged Kittiwake at Yakumo on Monday as well as 7 other species of gull around. The Kittiwakes are regular autumn visitors to the Pacific coast, sadly I couldn’t find any Red-legged ones.
Other stuff around included lots glocks of various ducks, Peregrine, Osprey, Common Kingfisher, Great Egret and Great-crested Grebe.
Upstream there are already plenty of Salmon gathering: the eagles will be here in 3 or so weeks…………..