What an afternoon though. First sighting was of 10 or so Rissos at the perimiter of Fishguard Bay sighted from Harbour Village after a tip off from Holly on the breakwater. Then it was off to Strumble for an ebb tide session. Not a lot happening there as the tide race started to form and then I spotted a Peregrine Falcon coming in off the sea and settling on the headland above Makerel Point. He stayed for ten minutes or so and then went back out over the sea and I lost sight of him. Holly and Ben arrived just as I spotted some distant Rissos (6-8) some two miles out to the north. As we strained to keep them in view another group of 12 or so started moving in from the NW and came into the tide race. WE were treated to a good show by some of the younger ones as they breached several times in front of us. As they moved off another group of 8-10 came in from the west moving slowly up the tde stream. This I'm sure was the same maternal group that Cliff and I had seen about a week ago as I recognised the fin markings on one mother with calf in tow. I was cursing the high cloud that came over during this period producing poor light conditions but it was still a fine show all the same. All in all you can't complain if you get to see upward of 40 rissos in an afternoon.
You may all have heard on the news about the many Octopus that have been seen on the beaches lately and it seems that they are still around in large numbers. For a few weeks now I have been observing young seals catching a good number of them. It continued today with the gulls getting a good feed as they stole the Octopus off the seals as they brought them to the surface to eat. There are a few pics over on the birding blog http://strumbleheadseawatching.blogspot.co.uk/2017/ along with shots of the Peregrine too.
