Peregrines and porpoise

Last night at bird log there was a suggestion that a strong north wind might pick up in the next few days, meaning they wouldn't be able to send the boat across. By this morning we'd had confirmation that this is definitely the case and so they were taking the overnight guests off a day early. Anyone who needed to be back on the mainland before Saturday evening, including volunteers, had the chance to leave this afternoon. They're hoping that the wind will die down by Saturday/Sunday so anyone else can get off then.

One of the other volunteers decided to go early as she won't have enough food but the rest of us are staying. We'll all be running pretty low on supplies by Sunday though. A lot can happen in three days though so I'm fairly confident we'll get off. In the meantime we're staging a "hostel takeover" and using the nice shower over there!
...
Edit: the shower was no better than ours, apparently.

So, no boats for the next two days so I think we'll be helping to give the guest hostel a big old clean. It's usually fully booked throughout the summer and you can only do so much on changeover days, especially if it's been a big group.

Despite the crummy weather today's been my best "spotting" day so far. I was on island patrol this morning so we took our time and went to a few places where you have a chance of seeing something interesting. So here we go:

• 5 buzzards (probably adults and  their young) swooping around the cliffs at Bull Hole;
• a pair of peregrine falcons at Pigstone Bay;
• 7-8 porpoise in the same area as the peregrines;
• a Manx shearwater at the Wick (very unusual).

We saw gannets in the same area as the peregrines, which often means that there are porpoise or dolphins pushing fish towards the surface as they feed, so we waited and got a great show from the porpoise. They can be tricky to spot, especially in choppy water, as they don't come very far out of the water but they were breaching quite well today and they hung around for quite a while. We left before they did. Between peregrines, porpoise and gannets I didn't know what to look at next!

I saw the shearwater when I was down at the Wick (the main puffin colony), getting freezing cold and quite wet. There was a commotion amongst the flowers and a black and greyish bird flopped onto the path. At first I thought it was a puffling but it was very clumsy and then I realised that it was a Manx shearwater. It flopped across the path and flew off the cliff. It had obviously gone down the wrong burrow last night and was trying to get back out to sea! I got a bit excited and tried to tell two ladies how unusual it was and how lucky they were to have seen it but they were a) German and didn't really understand me and b) only cared about puffins I think. So I had to wait until I saw my fellow volunteers to get a suitably enthusiastic reaction.

So it's going to be a quiet few days for us, but hopefully if the weather's not too bad I can go and get a few more photos or spend some time in the hides.

I was going to represent the volunteers at bird log tonight (it's at the wardens' house) but the weather's grim and I don't fancy getting soaked for a second time today. I'll have to share my sightings tomorrow instead.