Seaford seawatch (25 April 2019)

Thursday 25 April. I seawatched from Seaford from 05:55-12:55 joining ME and DB at the eastern shelter which only seats two. MR shortly joined me on the sheltered side and where we avoided most of the fewer than forecast showers. We'd been waiting for the SE wind all week and were not disappointed but although good it was not the classic watch/Pom day we had been hoping for. 

I recorded the following flying east: 49 Brent Geese, 8 Velvet# and 546 Common Scoter, a very close Great Northern, 3 Red-throated and 3 Black-throated Divers (with 3 more unidentified), 2.5 Manx Shearwaters##, 202 Gannets, an Avocet (sat on the sea), 42 Whimbrel, 41 Bar-tailed Godwits, 71 Black-headed, a black-winged immature Little and 71 Mediterranean Gulls (67 adults and 4 first-summers), 158 Sandwich, 2 Little, 6 Common, 13 Arctic, 34 Commic and a Black Tern, 28 Great, 33 Arctic (6 pale and 27 dark) and a distant pale-morph Pomarine Skua (at 11:28) and 10 auks.

Later Megan and I took Cookie along Southwick Beach but only saw the Peregrine on the Power Station.

# The Velvet Scoter were a single and a flock of 7, the latter passing us at 07:12 and JFC et al at Birling at 07:20. The Common Scoter included an unusual white-winged individual at 11:05 that had been seen in Dorset and was later recorded at Dungeness.

## ME saw 22 Manx Shearwaters although more than half were in the half hour before I arrived. Having said that I only saw two well, the half representing a wing which was all I saw of a distant group of three ME was tracking.