A female bullfinch feeding on what remains of the blackberry seeds on the garden bramble bushes was a good find by Lisa this morning. We only had one record in the whole of 2014 so nice to get it on the year list. The bullfinch was quite secretive, initially given away by her repetitive soft 'pew-pew' call. She did break cover on one occasion though which allowed us to get the following photos:
Meanwhile I battled my way up to the seawatch hide in a NW force 9 and was rewarded with 2 'bonxies' (great skuas) heading south. These are the first January records for Ramsey for this species - most are recorded in September and October on migration from their northern breeding sites. Plenty of guillemots were passing too - at an impressive rate of 1600/hr at one point (count all you can in 30 mins and x2 to get an estimate of hourly passage). Kittiwakes were passing at 350/hr and in 90 mins I also logged two red-throated divers and 20 gannets.
As I write this the wind has eased slightly since this morning but there is more to come and it looks like its getting colder too!