September 23rd

There have been more flocks of pink-footed geese and barnacle geese going over today. Winter is feeling much closer. I did a bit of sea-watching this evening: it’s now getting dark so early that I can barely squeeze in any time after getting home from work. Seabirds tend to go to bed early and there is not much point watching if it’s less than hour until dusk. I watched the late fledging gannets lumbering over the sea, flocks of guillemots leaving the Forth and a single manx shearwater and thought about how every autumn is quite different in terms of seabirds. This year it’s the absence of sooty shearwaters that stands out – this is my first year ever without one. And the abundance of little gulls that were so characteristic of this time of year five or more years ago are now a thing of the past. I haven’t seen a little gull this autumn, again something very unusual even if their numbers have been going down steadily these last few years.

Always plenty of gannets to enjoy in September even if other species are more elusive