Around 6:30 Uku found a juvenile Mediterranean Gull Ichthyaetus melanocephalus hiding among the rocks of the tip. All the gulls were facing the wind, and therefore with their backs towards us, making refinding it difficult and time-consuming. Pelle and Anni joined us to see the gull and after an hour we had all had at least some views and had all returned to normal counting procedures. Not many minutes had passed before, scanning the horizon with the scope, I picked up a black and white bird I immediately recognised as a Manx Shearwater Puffinus puffinus. The bird was probably less than 2 km away and coming closer, in good light, in typical shearwater flight, gliding up and down the waves. I screamed ‘shearwater’ at the top of my voice, and everybody (Uku, Mari, Pelle and Anni) fortunately quickly got on to it. As it went in front of the island, I grabbed my camera and pointed it in the direction I thought the bird would be in and took 10 photos. I did not see the shearwater at all through my camera, and afterwards I had some trouble refinding the bird, as it turned and zigzagged its way towards the west. Afterwards we looked at the various smudges in our cameras, but I could not even spot the bird in my pics. However, at home, I found it actually showing in a few of them, two of which below. This constitutes the second record for Estonia, with the first also at Põõsaspea on 25.9.2020, a swimming bird, which was only seen and photographed by Roger Erikson.

Annika

Max Shearwater @Annika Forsten Max Shearwater @Annika Forsten Mediterranean Gull (c) Uku Paal Mediterranean Gull (c) Uku Paal Mediterranean Gull (c) Uku Paal