With a storm the previous night and thousands of Manx shearwaters passing Cape Cornwall, the conditions were right for a great morning of sea watching from Pendeen. The sheer numbers of Manx shearwaters, gannets and fulmars passing the point was breathtaking. They were all passing in their thousands, with an estimate a 7500 Manx shearwaters passing a minute. I spent an hour and a half searching for any rarities passing, seeing both great and Arctic skuas and my first British sooty shearwaters. My last sooty shearwater came on the incredible Kaikoura pelagic seabird trip from New Zealand, back in 2006. Unfortunately I missed the great and Balearics shearwaters, pomarine skua and Sabines's gull, all of which were reported past Pendeen today and all of which would have been new species for me.
A little later, I headed back to Marazion Marsh in an attempt to find the spotted crake again. I did unfortunately miss it, but did see a fine tally of 8 little egrets. We then had a look on Marazion beach, on which I saw my first common ringed plovers of the year, as well as sanderling, dunlin, oystercatcher and turnstone in good numbers and one common sandpiper, quite a remarkable tally of waders!
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