While enjoying the sunshine on the Cornish beaches in light easterlies (but not enjoying any seawatching) I looked to the week ahead and saw a promising push of northerly winds through the North Sea just as I was due to return to the fens. A few plans put in place and arriving back in Ely about 9 on Wednesday 25th, I got a bit of sleep but was heading out to Sheringham with Mark and Ben by 5am on Thursday morning.
As we drove over it looked like the wind was not as strong as we had hoped. However as we walked down to the shelter on the seafront the wind was fierce enough and the waves were pounding the sea defences along the front. The shelter was pretty full and we'd just missed a Cory's heading East. It was a solid watch till midday with a steady movement of Arctic Skuas and Bonxies, the odd Sooty Shearwater, a few more Manxies and a good variety of wildfowl and waders - excitement had come in the form of a Black Guillemot charging through the swell, a well spooned adult Pom Skua and a Black Tern but no Long-tailed Skuas or Sabines Gulls which we thought might pass. Folk started packing up and a family squeezed into the shelter wafting lovely Fish and Chip vapours triggering envy. I broke cover to get us something to smother in salt and vinegar and on my return joked that if a Pterodroma had passed while I was at the chippy it really would have been taking one for the team. We gorged and shortly after returned to focus on the sea, a few things got called at the same time, one of which must have been a Manxie. I was checking a skua that had gone east or something when Mark said "that's not a Manxie" with enough quizzical urgency that I swung back to his midday line and asked "Where?" his direction was good being pretty well straight out and as soon as I got on the bird things went bonkers as, at long range, a bird I immediately recognised as an Albatross broke the horizon. "Stay on it Mark, that's a 'kin albatross" I took a calmer second to be sure I wasn't making a huge blunder while Mark tried to make some sense of what I was suggesting. On auto-pilot I hollered "Black-browed Albatross, straight out, on the horizon - I am not joking"
All but one of the remaining seawatchers got on it quickly and we had about 2 minutes worth of this huge winged monster, arcing and towering above the horizon and rolling down on bowed wings. I lost the bird as the shelter pillar obscured my view but others stayed on it and then, coming up to a boat, it seemingly vanished into the horizon haze. I looked around into the next booth of the shelter, seasoned seawatchers looked shakey, pale and stunned and then came the congratulatory handshakes, smiles and amazement and discussions about the bird and it's features, jizz and identification. It was such a surprise, a lighting bolt and a surreal fulfillment of a seawatchers pipe dream. An Albatross on a UK seawatch - I'm pinching myself just writing it.
Ben's eye view of the Albatross and it's arc
At the range we saw the bird, specific identification of the albatross would be difficult but in all probability this was an adult Black-browed Albatross, the possibility of it being the bird enjoyed by so many of us over the summer, taking a sojourn from the cliffs at Bempton was discussed. I last saw this bird just a few weeks ago off the cliffs, at quite some distance offshore, and the similarities in flight, proportions and jizz were overwhelming. I was also transported back to seawatching off the South Island of New Zealand, which I did many times, where Black-browed Albatross was a common bird amongst an array of other Albatross and tubenoses.
It took a bit of time and effort to get back into the flow of the seawatch, the images and thought of the Albatross kept blowing my mind and conversation kept returning to it but then a call for Cory's Shearwater had us in a blur of horizons and directions and I connected with an uncharecteristically speedy bow winged large shear' carving the horizon. Then the Black Guille came back heading East and Skuas kept coming. Eventually the hoped for Long-tailed Skuas appeared, 3 singles in total, all juveniles heading East and a fantastic flock of Pale Bellied Brent heading West all adding to the quality of the supporting cast. We eventually called it a day close to 7pm - a 12hr seawatch of truly epic proportions. Wowzers.
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