September 20th

This evening it was very calm and everything was glowing in the late sunlight. Gulls were dipping down to the surface of the sea like terns: kittiwakes, black-headed gulls and even some common gulls. The bright light and the reflection from the sea made a lot of contrast so distant young kittiwakes would look like black terns or even sabines gulls. It was the sort of evening when either might be stopping off by Crail on their way south, but hope sadly doesn’t make things so. The sea wasn’t as flat as it gets but it was flat enough that I could see guillemots and razorbills as specks right to the horizon through my telescope, punctuated by the white slashes of diving gannets passing through my field of view in the foreground. You can seawatch forever on an evening like this – always something to look at and to try to identify, whether a distant duck or diver, but simultaneously also being very calm and relaxed.

Kittiwake (JA)