Dick Lorand and I spent 7 hours watching on 27th and 5 hours on 28th at Sandilands. We had 1 harbour porpoise on 27th and 4 sightings of 2-3,2,2 and 1 on 28th. However, the highlight for us was the wader migration on the 28th, with the largest number of whimbrel we had ever seen. This corresponds with Steve Lorand's Donna Nook observations on 28th and those at Spurn, where they also had their highest whimbrel count ever at 668 with 11 curlew, 208 turnstone, 33 Black-tailed godwits and many dunlin and knot, along with 953 swifts. We were not watching all day, as Spurn observers were, but unlike skuas and shearwaters off Spurn, which we don't pick up in numbers, at least the waders come in close to the Lincs coast as they are south coasting. We also had a female scaup, which stayed in the same vicinity both days. Normally, guillemots with juveniles are seen at this time close to our shore, but none on 27th or 28th. However, we did have a puffin and there were 2 arctic skuas on 27th.
Counts 27th 28th Gannet 0 2 Cormorant 2 0 Heron 0 1 Teal 0 7 Scaup 1 1 Common Scoter 45 3 Oystercatcher 115 85 Grey Plover 0 1 Knot 219 361 Sanderling 82 87 Dunlin 32 187 Redshank 54 52 Black-tailed Godwit 0 5 Curlew 1 1 Whimbrel 1 329 Arctic Skua 2 0 Little Tern 5 1 Sandwich Tern 15 11 Common Tern 0 1 Arctic Tern 0 1 Commic Tern 3 0 Puffin 0 1
Regards, Cliff
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