Fishing well out into Lyme Bay today in the fog again saw a
significant passage of pipits skylarks etc with flocks coming through every 5
minutes before lunch. We also managed to save 2 birds today ! A Redwing that had
dropped into the water right beside the boat and was in danger of being attacked
by Fulmars so I managed to fish it out in the net and it spent the rest of the
day in the cabin curled up in a hat, and a little pipit that landed exhausted on
the boat ,which after helping to drive the boat home (see photo attached)
decided to curl up in one of the guys hands and go to sleep until we got back to
Brixham, where both birds had recovered enough to fly off. That suggests to me
that there must be significant losses during passage as we were only covering
half a mile of water whilst fishing – has anyone done any work on that anywhere
out of interest. Seabirds were very standard fare I’m afraid.
PS We had a lot of cod so I got a fry up as well – happy
days
[Tim Clyburn]