Thursday 18 May 2017

BBA - Finale

Arrived just before 10. Time for Bud. A car pulled up, it was Tony (Dixon). Great to see him. We had a brief chat and I said I'd meet him by the visitor centre. Trevor was there talking technical with some chap. I said hello, mentioned Tony was here and waited a short distance away. Then a shout "ALAN!", it was Trevor. I walked back to him and he informed me the bird had been seen earlier!!

The observer was nowhere to be seen however. Richard (Willison) appeared! I informed him and Tony of the news. We all made our way down to Bartlett Nab were the sighting took place. Initially the sighting was reported as being made around 7.30am.

The reserve was very busy today and the weather had improved a tad from yesterday!

I was in good company, plenty of eyes scanning and the sky was blue. There are worse places to be, I thought. Plenty of birds to observe, as you can imagine. The good news was we were looking for THE biggest bird. Other hopefuls turned up including Gary Taylor, Mick Turton and Dan Pointon. Then Trevor arrived. We all speculated about the BBA...as you do.

Trevor then returned to the visitor centre as "the observer" had appeared.  We continued to scan. After a while I gave Trev a ring. He said "the observer" had seen the BBA at eye level fairly close to the cliffs. He also said he was a photographer, yet no photos were taken? The time of the sighting had now changed to c8.30am.

News of a possible boat emerged. Initially I was keen but my four-legged friend ruled me out. Eventually five intrepid birders made their way out towards the cliffs from Bridlington to scan from below. An excellent idea.

Alas, it wasn't to be. News then came through that "an Albatross" had been seen back in Germany. Lots of theories were then expounded, including the "two bird theory" and Albatross speed. All good fun.

Here's my twopenneth...for what it's worth...
  • No doubting the young lads original sighting on Saturday
  • I don't believe the subsequent sightings
There, that didn't take long!

I feel the bird drifted past and continued out to sea. I did put a few hours in though (c24) just in case I was wrong!

Maybe I'll get lucky one day...

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