Winter Wildlife Trip

We have been trying to do this trip for some while now but it keeps getting cancelled due to bad weather, but on Saturday we decided to give it a go.

With all our guests on board we set sail.

We had not even left the harbour and we had a female Long-tailed Duck and a male and female Maganser's. We slowly steamed towards the Farne Islands as it was a bit choppy and the wind was coming from the N.E. so I wanted to get the worst bit over straight away. Once we were there it was calm in the shelter of the Islands and we had 3 Long-tailed Ducks fly past the boat.

After that we headed towards Staple Island to see the Seals, and we were greeted by loads of Fulmars flying around. We had a few Purple Sandpipers, Turnstones and lots of seals. After everyone got a few photographs we headed towards Holy Island riding the waves along the way.

I have never known a day like it, as it felt like 4 seasons in 1 day. We had sun, cloud, wind, calm seas, rough seas but to top it all of we had a heavy downpour of snow just as we got to Holy Island. I kept on looking at my guests to see if they were ok as it was cold and the last thing we needed was snow but out towards the sea was a small bit of blue sky and my fingers were crossed it would come our way.

It did thank god and we were so pleased as out of the gloom appeared a Slavonian Grebe. It was so hard to get a good picture of this little beauty as my camera kept on focusing on the water instead of the bird.

After that we had 30+ Common Scoters and a single Velvet Scoter and along the way we also had 2 Red-throated Divers, some Guillemots and Razorbill and in total 17 Long-tailed Ducks.

We were arrived back at the harbour they guys noticed a male Long-tailed Duck in the harbour, so we had to pop across for a quick picture to finish the trip.

Once again I would like to thank everyone who joined me and next time I hope the weather is alot better for us.

Here are some very dull pictures of our trip and they are not very good either sorry.