No sooner had Storm Ellen passed than Storm Francis came crashing in today. More gusts of 60mph, another huge swell and 48mm of rain overnight. I can't remember two named storms in August before, all this hot on the heels of a heatwave and thunderstorms.
Between storm systems I manged to get the first official grey seal pup count of the season in. There were 17 on our 9 monitored beaches. This is carried out every 3 days until the end of the pupping season so tomorrow's count will be a test of how well the new born pups fared in these conditions. I'm not holding out too much hope of good news but have been proved wrong by their tenacity in these conditions in the past so fingers crossed.
Yesterday there were 4 new pups on the small beach to the south of the harbour, Aber Felin. After this morning's high tide I could unfortunately only see 2 left on there. Viewing conditions weren't great though with all the salt spray flying around so I will have another check tomorrow.
A late afternoon seawatch produced the first Balearic shearwater of the year. This is Europe's only Critically Endangered Seabird, breeding, as their name suggests in the Balearic islands. At this time of year non breeders disperse from the Mediterranean into the Atlantic and sweep up towards the SW of Britain with some getting pushed up into the Irish Sea
The south side of the harbour wall
Back of the harbour
When the tide dropped this little one fast asleep as if nothing had happened!
While this heavily pregnant cow will, hopefully, hold on another 12 hours or so till the storm passes and the swells subside a bit
48mm of rain in around 6 hours created this small landslip on the way down to the harbour. It might not look much but we are seeing them every year now and as a result the farmhouse is another few inches closer to the edge!