With Storm Ciarán still making its way east across the south of England, Hastings was pretty wet and windy on the 2nd and by midday I hadn’t yet dared to venture outside. That was until I got a call from David Campbell to say he had just had 3 Leach’s Storm-Petrel past West Hill. Fortunately I was able to get out and join him for an hour, during which time a further 9 Leach’s moved east along the seafront, as well as a single European Storm-Petrel. Many were coming in quite close to the shoreline and would have offered amazing views for anyone down on the seafront proper.

A bit of crash course in petrel identification for me but fortunately David was there to help me along. The most time was spent watching the relatively slim and long-winged Leach’s, which flew with big swoops and glides when moving with the wind. They would sometimes rise and turn into a hover against the wind before dropping down to feed on the surface. Picking up plumage features was harder with the distances involved but an overall dark plumage was evident with the paler carpal bars visible at times. I was looking for the forked tail but in reality this was only rarely visible in the field.

I only got brief views of the Euro but fortunately David got a better a look and was able ID it. Nice to see it in the same scope view as a Leach’s briefly though, where the Euro appeared noticeably smaller with rapid fluttering wing beats and comparatively direct flight action. Apparently the rarer species of the two in Sussex.

Simply magic to watch these tiny pelagic seabirds dance over the churning sea. These were part of a much larger spate of sightings along the coast of SE England that day. Presumably the storm diverted birds making their southbound autumn migration across the Atlantic and pushed them up the channel, the trajectories involved somehow resulting in a particular cluster on the Sussex coast. Huge numbers seen over the day from coastal watch points in the county, including 112 from Birling Gap and 110 from Splash Point. Sadly our joy at watching them comes a great deal of peril for the birds and autumn storms like this are not good news for them.

David has been pioneering seawatching from West Hill, from a spot positioned just south of Castle Rocks and above the steps down to the old town. The distance from the sea is not insignificant but still very doable and the angle is great, plus it’s relatively sheltered. With David having seen 2 Balearic Shearwater from there in October, it seems that both shears and petrels do sometimes pass close-in along the coast between Eastbourne and Dungeness.

I’ve continued to focus on the sea since then, with some reward as birds continue to reorient post-storm. On the 4th there were 3 adult Yellow-legged Gull among the hundreds of gulls feeding on the surf as they slowly moved west, while on the 5th 10 Little Gull passed west over the course of a 1.5h watch.