Berry Head

A brief (cold) watch 12:30-14:30: 2 Eider off the platform. Lots of birds moving out in Lyme Bay, a Black-throated Diver (south), all other divers seen were Red-throated with 4 north and 3 south and 2 unidentified Divers north (prob Red-throats). Lots (100s) of auks moving both north and south making counting hard, but mainly Razorbills, however, in one large group heading south was a Puffin which landed on the sea.

Up to 6 Harbour Porpoises feeding off the head, but more unusually a lone Common Dolphin was feeding with them for a few minutes, before heading off south.

Eider and Harbour Porpoise surfing

It seems that the sightings of Sooty Shearwaters at Prawle and Torbay on the 1st January (amazingly) may have been different birds. The Prawle bird appearing to look more typical Sooty with silvery underwing. While the Torbay bird lacked this feature and also had strange pale patches on the uppering (not seen on the Prawle bird).