November/December 2023

Storm Ciaran arrived with malevolent force during the night of 1st/2nd November, headed straight for the Channel Islands and gave us a good battering, with the strongest winds since the ‘87 blow. Luckily, our property received no real damage apart from some loose flashing resulting in a bit of water down the chimney, but many parts of the island saw quite a bit of destruction. Unlike our next-door neighbour, none of our roof tiles were displaced, but what I was keen on seeing displaced was some seabirds. Oceanic birds from the Atlantic will have been blown into the English Channel by this tempest and I fancied seeing some of them as they made their way back out. The first opportunity for me to do this was three days later, on Sunday 5th November when the winds had switched WNW-erly and so I headed up to Jaonneuse to shelter behind the “big rock” with my ‘scope.

The waves were big but the viewing conditions were pretty good looking out to sea and when I arrived there were regular auks and Kittiwakes flying past. I was not early enough to see the handful of skuas going past but, fortunately, I was just in time to see the main target of the seawatch. Just before 9 someone picked out a petrel - not ridiculously far out, but far enough out to be annoying. It was so difficult to keep track of and I luckily was able to follow it for a bit as it popped out from behind waves for mainly just a few seconds at a time. All four of us got ono it though and straight away it looked different from Storm Petrels which are regularly seen off here in small numbers, and we quickly identified it as a LEACH’S PETREL. This was not a surprise because Leach’s Petrel was one of the main species that had been displaced into the Channel and there were 3-figure counts off Kent and Sussex after the blow, and a few birds were wrecked in Jersey.

The main ID features which were striking to me were, firstly, from my views, the bird just looked all black. I realise that because of the way it was flying relative to the wind, the only time it stood out well enough to notice it was when it was swooping round showing its underside, which was totally dark. For me, I couldn’t clearly see any rump patch or upperwing bar. The second obvious thing was the flight which was powerful and aggressive, fighting against the conditions, very unlike the fluttery, softer flight of a Storm Petrel. Thirdly, the wings were very long and distinctly pointed, with a bend in the middle, quite unlike the rounder wings of a Stormie. It gave the impression more of a tiny, black tern in shape. We did see a single standard Storm Petrel later on which made a good comparison and confirmed our thoughts. A notable point was that on the Stormie, whichever angle it was showing at, you could see a bright white blob of a rump patch very easily, unlike the earlier bird.

The views of this bird was not ideal and I would have liked to have seen all the features properly but it was clearly a Leach’s Petrel, which was not a surprise as there were lots in the Channel and we were indeed looking for one, but it was very exciting nonetheless. The last accepted record of Leach’s here was way back in 2004, so a rare bird locally. Also a new bird for my own Guernsey list and one I have only ever seen once before. That one was not in its natural habitat but flying round an inland lake in West Yorkshire back in the 90s.

I was half-expecting us to see more Leach’s but this bird was our only one. I only saw a single shearwater, a Balearic, and no skuas whilst I was there. A red-head Red-breasted Merganser flew by and we were very impressed by groups of Woodpigeons arriving in off the sea - we must have seen over 500 in total. There were a couple of Little Gulls blogging around and we saw another in the distance with some Kittiwakes. It was whilst watching this flock of small gulls that two dark birds suddenly appeared with them. They were difficult to make out at first being very low to the surface but then they briefly gained a little height and I glimpsed the distinctive tricoloured wing pattern of two juvenile SABINE’S GULLS. Even though they were quite far away, the birds were very distinctive and they followed this small flock of Kittiwakes and Little Gull as they slowly made their way west. These two birds kept disappearing from view - presumably too low against the waves - but when they did appear with the Kitties they stood out really well.

Again, this was not a total surprise since this was another species that had been displaced eastwards into the Channel - in fact two birds had been seen just a couple of days previously. But it was a long-wanted new species for my Guernsey list, something I really should have picked up by now whilst seawatching as it is not at all as rare as the Leach’s, with multiple records in some years. Like before it would have been nice to get closer views but it was good enough. A two-tick day!

Sometimes migration extends well into November but this year it was very poor with just a lingering Wheatear at Vazon on 6th and 7th. A long trek round Pleinmont on 11th saw very few species indeed - autumn was indeed over and was a massive squib. One small highlight was a Glossy Ibis which took up residence for a few days in Barras Lane fields and I popped in to look at on the way home one day. Due to a few recent long-stayers, this species’ value has declined but this was the first for three years here.

Winter birding then kicked in and it seemed to be good for Great Northern Divers this year, with three different birds seen on the patch - at Vazon, Grandes Rocques and Rousse. Vazon also produced a Red-breasted Merganser on 22nd and a Great Crested Grebe on 30th. Apart from these car-viewed birds I saw little else in November and December as the weather was absolutely miserable - rain after rain after rain. I can’t remember any time so wet.

There was one final moment of excitement, on Boxing Day. We were driving down the west coast, with me in the back seat half-asleep when, bleary-eyed, I looked out of the side window to see a group of gulls squabbling for scraps right on the road next to us, literally yards away. After passing them at speed, I thought to myself, “one of those beasts didn’t have white wings did it?” and told Rosie to quickly stop. I dived out and looked back to see that I was not hallucinating - there was indeed a white-winger just stood in the road! I managed to take a few snaps with the camera before a cyclist came past and flushed it. I wasn’t totally sure of the ID at first since it looked like it had pretty long wings and I’d only seen it through the camera, so I initially put the news out as Glauc/Iceland to be on the safe side. We couldn’t stay to see it better and we had to drive off but, it seemed to be the largest bird there amongst the Herrings and, checking on the camera screen, I could see that it was in fact a first-winter GLAUCOUS GULL and I corrected the alert - a nice end-of-year find. Glaucous Gull was once very rare here, but there was a sudden big increase with 16 birds recorded from 2000 up until 2018, so expected most winters. However, since then it has been much scarcer with only one bird in Feb 2020 and then none until this one, so the first on the island for almost four years.

Just A Bird

Just A Bird

Mark Lawlor's Nature Blog

Just A Bird

November/December 2023

Just A Bird