Champions of the Flyway!

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Winter fuel

Black-throated Diver ...... 
 
With a lingering hangover from another memorably weird Filey folk club, a free afternoon and five miles of deserted sandy beach effectively outside the front door, there was only one thing for it. Thus, the Mrs and I ambled contentedly along the shore all the way to Speeton Cliffs at the southern end of the bay, enjoying a wealth of wonderful wildlife and an almost complete lack of humankind in the process.

locally rare, remarkably tarty
 
In the bay, a minimum of ten Little Gulls danced above the swell, an omnipresence from the town's seafront southwards; Sanderlings entertained along the tideline, and the requisite cast of Great Crested Grebes, Common Scoters, Red-throated Divers, Shags and others occupied the waves. But a couple of unexpected highlights brightened a pleasantly grey day even further.

 
Unexpectedly, a Common Seal (much the rarer of the two seal species locally) hauled up briefly just in front of us, before thinking better of it and slipping back into the surf; at the very end of the beach, meanwhile, a diver materialised close inshore, clearly a Black-throated (again much the rarer of the three likely species) even with the naked eye, which then proceeded to entertain us until the fading light ushered us homeward bound.

 
Almost two years after moving here, it just seems to get better and better.

Common Seal - far from Common .....


...... and entertaining Amity no end


Little Gull, against a backdrop of the Brigg