Went down to the seafront to look for the Arctic Skuas reported last night, but no luck with these. As I arrived, at 1200hrs, I picked up a Short-eared Owl coming in off the sea, circling a couple of times over the sea, before gradually gaining height and drifting off high NNE. A Little Tern was offshore with the Sandwich Terns.
At 1220hrs my attention was drawn to a huge bird heading out over the dunes and straight out to sea. This turned out to be a Common Crane! This is as far as I know the first record for Exmouth. It continued on its southerly course until lost to view.
Just to complete my "seawatch", a pair of Garganey flew in and landed briefly on the sea, before being flushed off eastwards by a powerboat.
