The following report has been kindly compiled by John Newnham and hopefully of some interest to any sea-watching enthusiast!
There have been a number of postings about local seawatching in recent weeks. Below I have tabulated the totals for March from sea-watches where I have been able to work out start and end times and the flight direction of birds. The figures only include moving birds and not counts of birds either offshore or on the beach. The four right hand columns give the average and maxima of both this and last century observations and these figures combine both east and westbound bird totals. The total of nearly 54 hours watching is well above the average for both this and last century and is just below the previous highest March total recorded this century. As always some species have been recorded in higher than usual numbers, Pintail and Garganey look to be the highest March total whilst Fulmar observations are well down. These figures may change if further timed observations are forthcoming.
