It is
seawatching season in Ireland, that time of year when seemingly sensible people take leave of their senses, head to the nearest headland and watch seabirds pass while getting soaked and half frozen to death.
So on Saturday morning i got up at 4.08 am and headed towards
Melmore Head in
Donegal. Now usually when the winds turn North West in August or September i head to
Kilcummin Head in Mayo so why
Melmore this time? Well its simple
Melmore stalwart and friend Eric
Randall had been on at me for several years to join him. Last week texts like "Big Salty" "Far reaching Atlantic Depressions" (no not
Inishboffin!) "Mega conditions" finally
persuaded me to go.
Now Eric is an Irish
Seawatching Legend. He owns a Caravan on
Melmore Head and for two weeks every August he encamps here. None of this two weekends on Galley and pretend your a
seawatching expert on
Birdforum, Eric is hardcore!!
Hardcore in more ways that one, the Caravan has NO running water, NO shower, NO toilet and
electricity is used
sparingly. Five miles to the nearest shop and 3 miles to the nearest pub! If you want a shower you go and bath in the Atlantic! Which him, his family, his relatives do every morning!
Eric has the telescope set up in the caravan and as soon as the Sooty
Shearwaters start to pass family, relatives and visitors are left to fend for themselves. After 15 years of this it all seems pretty normal.
So i arrived at 7.15am ready for action, windy and the Atlantic looked at his best. Eric typically had been watching from the caravan while having breakfast! So of we set across the field (stopping to look at the dead whale "Floaty
Blaoty!") and then i was met with a mountain!! No walking round this baby it was straight up. Hardcore would not describe this. Mountain Goat Randall set off, my heart, lungs, red blood cells were all screaming out. Wasn't made any easier by the fact that Eric says he walks the dog up here twice a day regardless of the weather! Half an hour later and covered in sweat we finally arrived.
But it was worth the pain,
seawatching Nirvana watching birds track across the bay from
Fanad and out past the headland. Simply amazing and i was a little jealous that Eric has had this to his own for 15 years. But like all
seawatch's you never know what your going to get and it was clear early on that despite the weather being perfect the birds were just not in the area. We recorded moderate numbers of Sooty
Shearwaters, Arctic Skuas,
Pomarine Skuas etc until at 12.05 Eric found a Petrel headed west. He informed me and i would like to say that i got onto it straight away. But i was away answering a call of nature and never heard him! Luckily when i got back the Petrel was just off the headland and we had great views and watched almost in silence not really
believing what we were watching. A "Wilson's Petrel!" the first land based record for
Donegal.
We immediately contacted our friend Wilton
Farrelly who was at his holiday home across the sound on
Fanad to grip him off!! I also text friends who were
seawatching at
Kilcummin and elsewhere and they were all delighted for me in the traditional Irish Style with most replies just simply saying "you bastard!" Delightful and i must get some new friends!
We continued
seawatching and went for dinner about 4pm which meant something i had been dreading since this morning, the return journey up Mount
Errigal. While having dinner Eric got a text from Wilton, he had just had a close
Corys Shearwater from
Fanad. I looked into Mountain Goats big sad dark eyes and knew what that meant, another hike across K2!
Corys is a
Donegal mega!
As we arrived at the
seawatching point, drenched once again in sweat Eric got another text from Wilton, he was watching another
Wilsons Petrel!! Amazing stuff and all the more so as he was able to watch it for nearly an hour feeding off
Fanad. We had no such luck but our totals for the day were as follows
Wilsons Storm Petrel 1
Sooty
Shearwater 17
Bonxie19
Pomarine Skuas 4
Arctic Skuas 13
Arctic Tern 9
plus one exhausted observer!!
We stayed in
Erics caravan and went
seawatching again the next morning. Mountain Goat Randall must also qualify as the fittest
seawatcher in Ireland (he regularly cycles 50 miles at a time, mostly up mountains!") and he was a fresh as a daisy! Despite the weather being perfect again seabirds were thin on the ground but at 7.55am Eric picked up another
Wilsons Petrel heading west and we savoured the views a bit easier this time. We wonder could it have been the
Fanad bird from yesterday evening heading back out of the bay. By early morning it was time to call it quits. Totals as follows
Wilsons Storm Petrel 1
Sooty
Shearwater 1
Bonxie 24
Pomarine Skua 2 (inc one very close dark phase adult)
Arctic Skua 4
Arctic Tern 10
I said goodbye to the legend that is the Goat who was probably just about to go out for a 100 cycle and on the way home found a juvenile Pectoral Sandpiper. A brilliant way to end a classic weekend.
Special thanks to Eric, i will be back.
Im in mountain training already!