Not great but not bad

Thought today might produce a stonking seawatch off Pendeen, unfortunately, it just proved pretty good, not complaining though. Rough totals of the more noteworthy species included: 9 Sooty, 45 Balearic and shed loads of Manx Shearwaters, 3-4 Sabine's Gulls, 10 Grey Phalarope, 1 Pomarine and plenty of Arctic and Great Skuas, 1 Puffin, 1 Ocean Sunfish and 2 Basking Sharks. Slightly better than the average vigil at Goldcliff Point, but no mega. Did dream up a new way of avoiding the slightly awkward moment when it comes to departing a well-attended seawatch - leap to your feet, clutch all your stuff to your chest and scream "I've gawt blisters on me eye-balls!" before legging it to the car whilst imitating the gait of a Sanderling on a hot tin roof. Absolutely guaranteed to negate the need to go through the usual pleasantries of saying good-bye, and offering repeated apologies, as you step across in front of people's scopes.

As we were passing, it seemed churlish (bordering on the rude) not to drop in on the Baird's Sandpiper at Marazion. It had, apparently, been showing down to a few metres but, by the time we arrrived, it was getting regularly disturbed by the usual trickle of oblivious non-birders pottering along the shoreline in search of something to do with their, otherwise vacuous, lives.

As per the Baird's, we also thought we had better pay our collective respects to the Wilson's Phalarope at Exminster Marshes, a brief stop produced the bird and some excellent loosely-associated bovine action,... sweet.