Seaford seawatch (18 April 2018)

Wednesday 18 April. With a light SE forecast and frustrated at missing some good seawatches during the previous few days (local sea mist and work) I arrived at Seaford at 06:00 to find JK and BS had recently arrived. We were soon joined on the front row by JM, JMS, SL and NP with JC, NG and others coming later. Only JK and I stuck it out to 12:00 and during our 6 hours I recorded the following flying East: 32 Red-throated Divers, 5 Manx Shearwaters (1@06:32 & 4@07:30), 17 Gannets, 1 Brent Goose, 7 Tufted Duck, a female Long-tailed Duck (tagged onto the end of a close flock of scoter), 278 Common Scoter, 5 Oystercatchers, 29 Whimbrel, 1 Bar-tailed Godwit, 10 Arctic Skuas (8 dark & 2 pale morphs), 4 Great Skuas, 125 Mediterranean Gulls (5 first-summers, 6 second-summers & 114 adults, most very close, a pair directly overhead), 5 Little Gulls (4 adults, all; distant), 9 Black-headed Gulls, 25 Common Gulls, 105 Sandwich Terns, 14 Commic Terns (6 close birds IDd as Arctic & 2 Common), 3 Little Terns and a single distant unidentified auk. Not the numbers witnessed by others on previous days but decent variety. The Med Gulls were splendid and I don't see Manx or Long-tailed Duck very often so it was definitely worth the early start.