Wednesday 19 August 2020

Higher Than The Sun


Fea's Petrel arcing flight - Killian Mullarney
Almost exactly my view and light


It's just under 2 hrs since it happened, really happened - I'm still shaky, high as the proverbial kite, unsure what to do with all the nervous energy and struggling to tackle the simple task of putting a pizza in the oven or holding a normal conversation.  How does seeing a bird, a relative mosquito speck, cruising it's way over a thunderously churning ocean, illicit the response I'm still experiencing right now.  Well, that is now a chapter waiting to be written in On Birding.

This morning I was down at Porthgwarra early, 6.30 early, the wind was belting in from the SE and everything was shrouded in thick mizzle.  I hunkered down in the cove to see if visibility would improve.  It didn't, and after almost 2hrs of watching the odd very close Manxie appear, I called it a morning.  The rain was steady and you really couldn't see a thing.  I figured an early return could pave the way for a return visit later in the day.  Back in Sancreed the rain and wind set in and it looked like a lost day.  I was surprised and felt vaguely silly when the morning totals from PG included 56 Great Shearwaters, it meant one thing, it had cleared on the coast earlier and we'd been left in the cloying murk of low cloud.

The family were open to a switch from a visit to Penzance to taking in the cafe and caves of Porthgwarra for the afternoon.  It was going to be a balancing act between grabbing time to seawatch from the compromise of the cove and spending some time with the family.  I had an hour from 3.30 and within five minutes I had my eyes on the bowed wings of a Cory's cruising west.  I was a bit surprised that this was my first large shearwater of the watch given the greater number of Greats out there.  It took another fifty minutes to find a Great Shearwater, quite a nice view, but dissappearing constantly between the waves.

Re-joining the family I had a lucky break.  They wanted to stay and play around the caves more.  All I had to do was move between the benches and stay close to where they were playing.  This extra time started to reveal a distant movement line of Great Shearwaters, Mark Hawkes was on his way from Cambs for the big winds over the next couple of days and I was keen to have a sense of the different zones and lines of movement as a starting point for our watch tomorrow.  I'd eeeked out as much time as I was going to get by 5 and Ange called time, I played happy dumb as each of the kids eeked out their time too with multiple loo requests and sand in shoe shenanagins.  God bless them because what happened next wouldn't have done had they not been so wiley.  

At 5.17 to the east of my view, a bird arced high - so very high, over the churning horizon.  Routinely I stayed on it, unthinking at this point.  It arced up so high again, navigating a very loud, and deep bass, sound wave.  Synapses fired, look at this bird properly now.  I looked and everything clicked in peaceful, zen like, slow motion.  Against the sea it's pale body winked, underside of the wings pattern indistingushable but dark. Up it arced again, upperside of the body against the sky - definitely grey body, I looked harder and the  two tone of the grey body and dark remiges was evident.  It dropped down to the sea again, alongside smaller, black backed and whizzing winged Manxie.  I thought the adrenaline would hit then, I knew what it was, I'd known almost from tbe first huge arc, FEA's.

I was amazed that I stayed so calm and absolutely present with the bird, enjoying every second of it's flight double checking each of the visible features including long wings and pale tail, - but it was the repeated arcing soars, launching up from the sea and  high over the horizon, that was  the most arresting and exhilarating part of the encounter.  I watched it for over a minute (even managing to get Ange to call over a nearby birder returning from the head - unfortunately he was 15 seconds too late)  before it dissappeared behind the cliff of the sheltered cove and out past and beyond the runnelstone and I hoped past any birders sat on the headland pushing on to the end of the day.

The adrenaline caught up, the personal enormity of the event starting to resonate.  Euphoria, completely out of kilter with talking to the kids, explaining what had happened, why I was now really weird, not able to listen to them or concentrate on whatever it was that had to happen next.  I got to the car and wrote a text to Rare Bird Alert and a Whatsapp to my Birdo brethren so the news would be out as soon as we headed out of the valley.  Driving was a bit of a struggle, everything super charged, hyper alert and then the euphoria again as I ran through it all, putting the totality of views together.

Pre-covid I had planned to travel to Madeira this summer solely to seek out the 3 pterodroma - Fea's, Desertas and Zino's Petrels.  Given the very land locked Ely10 - regular seawatching is one indulgence I forsake.  The thought of a UK Fea's has felt like a dream I'd just never fulfill, having spent the last 6 months watching videos over and over of these mythical seabirds I had worked so hard on not hoping, enjoying every seabird on it's own merits, keeping the expectations reasonable - and then this.  Transcendent birding, experienced, held in memory, moments to be remembered with the greatest fondness and exhilaration.

Jono rang, buzzing vicariuosly and Mark speeded up considerably on the M5 on his way down to join the party.  There are two hugely blowey days ahead, it feels strange not to be experiencing the expectation and be celebrating the big day before the big blow has happened.  

Time now for some celebtatory fizz and try for an early night ready for an pre-dawn start and hopefully another memorable seawatch in some heroically fierce winds.  Lets see what the south wind brings.













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