Friday I'm In Love

 

                                         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGgMZpGYiy8

When I first saw this illustration, many years ago, I fell in love with the idea of Skuas flying over Ely.  Graham Easy's pen work belies a passion for unlocking the secrets of overland Skua passage over Cambridgeshire.  His observations  have led to the understanding that strong autumnal North Westerly winds, coupled with squally showers and rain can encourage Skuas to build in numbers in the Wash and continue their passage, not along the coast as is the norm but within eyesight, inland along the courses of the Rivers Ouse and Nene before heading onwards towards the River Severn and out into the Atlantic via the Bristol Channel.  This passage is likely to occur in fine weather too but the Skuas can fly high, beyond ready detection.

A leviathon of storming norwesters crashed across East Anglia on Friday.  While I was sat at work Mark Hawkes was reporting Petrels and Skuas in horizontal rain and a gargantuan swell on 70mph winds at Sheringham.  News was building of hundreds of Skuas heading inland at Lynn Point at the mouth of the Ouse where it flows into The Wash.

It is rare for the best conditions to look for skuas to occur, even rarer to occur on a weekend and over the years I have spent too many days frustrated and envious at work as others have enjoyed inland skua passage, mostly in the far north of Cambridgeshire, on the county border at Foul Anchor on the tidal Nene.  I have also spent many hours watching the skies for skuas in Nor Westers in sub-optimal conditions, spurred on by hope.  This has not been without reward and a lone Bonxie on flood water at Fidwell Fen in just the right conditions many years ago fanned the flames, a couple more Bonxies heading inland at Foul Anchor the day after a large movement suggested you might just see something move against blue skies.  Another blustery but skualess day saw a fantastically scallop backed young Roseate Tern traverse the Norfolk and Lincolnshire vista in front of me and Ben.

I sent a miserly whatsapp to the Birdo group from the confines of my desk - "There will have been Skuas over Ely this morning #:0( "  and I'm sure there was.  By 4 o'clock I was free and gazing skyward from my favourite vantage point, a couple of minutes from home, at Quanea Drove.  This is a huge west facing vista tracking upstream (the flightpath of a skua) the silvery thread of the River Great Ouse from Queen Adelaide through to Stretham with the monolithic cathedral perched atop the shallow whaleback of the Isle of Ely.

It was blowing an absute hooley and I decided not to set up my scope afeared that it should blow over in a gust, 70mph had been recorded on the coast.  Bouyed by the news of Skuas over Thetford during the afternoon and continuing inland movement at Lynn Point, I began my watch from the shelter and comfort of the car.  It takes a while to get your eye in to a skywatch, getting a sense of the light and distances is all part of the fun.  There were some large gulls moving upriver and lots of Rooks, Jackdaws and Pigeons to get used to, Cormorants and Herons spiced things up a little but it was an hour or so in that saw a small group of circling Black-headed Gulls joined by the torpedo bodied, silver winged shapes of terns.  5 Sandwich Terns - only my second sighting in the Ely10 and certainly a success in my searches as they spiralled higher pushed away from the river and off, with the wind, towards Soham and Newmarket beyond.  With a crick in the neck and a sore back from twisting my frame I took a short break to get a few bits (ok, beer) from Tescos.  Having stretched out the cramp I was ready to do the hour or so till dusk.  The sky had cleared, I was tempted to call it a day.  To keep me going I kept recalling hundreds of spoon tailed Pomarine Skuas flying in groups of tens, westwards, over Varanger in Norway in clear skies and little wind one spring and the 2 pale phase Arctic Skuas winging their way low over the Biebrza Marshes, travelling to and from who knows where, in Poland on a beautiful still May evening, while I waited for the jack in a box lek of Great Snipe to begin.  Don't give up, Skuas don't always need rain to pass overland within sight.

I didn't give up and with the sun lowering a svelte dark bird appeared to the south of the cathedral, it banked to circle and it's form became clear, an Arctic Skua - little plumage but all jizz, as I watched another appeared beneath it, towering upward like dark lights being switched on another appeared and another.  In total 12 skuas kettled and span around each other, not unlike the Sandwich Terns had done earlier.  I'd seen flocks of resting skuas take to the wing and do this offshore before, heading up high and ready to move.  As the wind took them into the glare of golden clouds reflecting the dropping sun each blinked away out of sight - dissappearing as suddenly as they had appeared, magical.

Next day the winds continued, it was overcast and drizzly - it was back to form, 4 hours at Foul Anchor yielding nothing for Ben and I.  Indeed there was little skua movement anywhere adding another myth to the pile - skuas usually move on the first day of the right conditions.

 

 

 

We popped into Welney on the way back - 47 of the 60+ Cranes were on Lady Fen and on the observatory pool 7 Cattle Egrets roosted with a lone Great White beyond - even 10 years ago it would be hard to consider this scene likely.