On Monday I went out to South Gare for my second attempt to see a Pom Skua that has been hanging around the mouth of the Tees for over a week now (it's a real one this time - the previous one was re-idenitifed as an Arctic Skua on examination of photographs by experts).
This time, as I walked along the pier at the end of the Gare, at about half eight in the morning, almost the first bird I saw, flying towards me and then settling on the sea about twenty feet from me, was my target bird. I watched it for about 20 minutes there, then it flew back towards the end of the pier and settled on the water again (it doesn't seem right to say 'landed on the sea') and I watched it for about another hour, along with several other birders, flying occasionally and allowing me to get some reasonable pictures of it. I eventually had to leave it so that I could go and have my penultimate session of radiotherapy.
Then yesterday (Wednesday) I took two friends birding on the north side of the Tees and we went to North Gare (the shorter pier opposite the South Gare), and again, almost the first bird we saw as we walked along the pier was the same Pomarine Skua flying over our heads this time and then circling round a few times, allowing my friend to get some pictures of it.
Until this week, Pom Skua has been one of my biggest 'bogey-birds' - i.e. a bird that has eluded me despite forty years of birding and many attempts to see it.
The photos below were all taken by me on Monday - I didn't take any yesterday. The ones on the water show the spoon-shaped tail-feathers quite well, while the ones in flight show that the ends of the central tail-feathers (the spoons) are actually broken off. The yellow colouration on the neck and also the dark breast-band are visible on some of the photos. The other bird in one of the photos is a young Herring Gull and shows the size of the Pom well (almost the same size as a Herring Gull - in other words, bigger than an Arctic Skua would be.)
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