Dorset - 29.8.12

I woke early this morning and as there was a band of heavy rain due early morning I headed down to the bill for a seawatch. Whilst getting ready in the car park a Greenshank flew over narrowly avoiding the clutches of a Hobby. A slow but steady movement of birds was had but the highlight was a dark skua I picked up as it flew past the cafe and slowly headed out to sea. I got the other birders on it and it's small size and fluttery flight ID'd it as a juv dark morph Long-Tailed Skua! A total of 4 Manx Shearwaters along with another Sooty Shearwater flew past but it was Balearic Shearwaters that were showing in numbers. In the time I was present 18 of them flew past of which I found 3. 5 Common Scoter were the last species to get on the list before the rain started chucking down.

We later popped into Weymouth for a wander and thankfully the rain had eased a bit and by the time we had come out of the cinema after watching the new Total Recall the rain had stopped and a walk on the small pier saw 2 Sandwich Tern and a 2nd winter Med Gull fly past. A quick visit to Lodmoor RSPB only produced a Little Egret, 7 Common Sadnpiper and 6 more Sandwich Tern.