Steve's Birding,Wildlife & Walking Blog: Humber Seabirding Saturday & Sunday 24th & 25th October 2018.

With a constant flow of reports of Pom Skuas and other seabirds from Spurn and other sites along the east coast and a northerly blast with showers for both Saturday and Sunday,i decided to get on the local patch both days and hopefully log some of these northern beauties myself.The following is a summary of what i recorded over both days.

Saturday 24th October

A dire day weather wise until late afternoon with constant banks of rain/hail and a freezing northerly blow,but what a superb day regarding migrant birds.
Instead of tramping around in the rain,i decided to use the car as a mobile hide and parked along the floodbank half between East Halton Skitter and Winter's Pond and i stayed here for most of the day watching the river and the fields.
The tide was right up,but slightly dropping when i arrived and the first 'nice' bird i saw was a redhead Merg which decided to pop up right infront of me while i was getting organised.
This was just the start where Wildfowl were concerned with some really good numbers and variety on the move,the best of which was a cracking adult drake Long-tailed Duck which flew west along with at least 326 Common Scoter,Pintail,18 Goldeneye(My first local birds of the autumn) and 150 Wigeon.
On the fields about 200 Pink-footed Geese were joined by 5 lovely Whooper Swans which are always a pleasure to see.
A couple of great sightings passing over from the north bank were a single Short-eared Owl and a cracking ringtail Hen Harrier....things were pretty good today,i thought to myself!.
Back to the river and i thought i had seen a flock of Kittiwakes in the distance,lift off the river near Killingholme,but i couldn't see them anymore until all of a sudden they all got up into the air together,46.This is my largest count of this species together on the Humber in one flock and was really great to see.
The next highlight went to a single juvenile Arctic Tern which flew past close in,but it was peeing down so unfortunately no pics,but it may have been the same bird seen at Far-Ings at Barton a couple of days later.
Next were a couple of Guillemots making their way west up the estuary and finally the species i had been waiting for all day made an appearance....5 Pomarine Skuas.This was the icing on the cake for me today and my 6th patch year tick for the day.The flock consisted of 3 adults with full spoons and 2 immature/juv's,what a great sight to see on your local patch.
After nearly 8 hours watching the river,things had finally quietened down and i drove around to Winter's Pond now the rain had stopped and logged another Short-eared Owl for my troubles.
What a fantastic day,little did i know better was going to come tomorrow!.

Sunday 25th October

What a complete contrast to yesterday with much brighter conditions and more of an easterly element in the wind i thought.
I did exactly what i had done the day before and parked up along the sea wall,this proved to be a good move regarding the days sightings.
Today just seemed to be one good bird after another,as yesterday,but today was more manic at times.
While the tide was up well,there just seemed to be a steady stream of good birds,as i logged my first of 4 Little Auk's of the day,then a distant first winter Glaucous Gull,then 2 Guillemot's,then a Razorbill,then a juvenile Kittiwake just floating past along the Humber bank...this was local patching heaven,but better was still to come.
I had been watching gulls heading west up the estuary all morning,some really close to where i was stood,but i didn't expect to turn around and see 2 adult Pomarine Skuas float past me about ten feet away,talk about eye ball to eye ball.At first i panicked and the cameras AF didn't lock onto them,but i did manage to obtain a few decent shots as they just drifted along the bank towards the Skitter,what an amazing encounter.
A few more nice bits included 3 Red-throated Divers west,at least 17 Gannets,90 Common Scoter,30 Goldeneye,Guillemot and another Red-breasted Merg.
Just as i was about to pack up it happened again,as earlier,with the Poms,as an immature Glaucous Gull just sailed past with a Herring Gull,heading west.This bird in my opinion looked different to the earlier bird and i thought i could see grey feathering on the rump and mantle,so I'm going to call this one as a 2nd winter bird.
As i steadily drove back home to Barnetby,i just couldn't believe what an amazing couple of days it had been on the patch,adding a whopping 11 new birds for the year list,moving it up to 135 for the year,a cracking effort so far considering i have missed out on some good stuff.
I definitely look forward to my next visit in a few days and what other avian waifs i can find.