Pelagic

By Alan Tilmouth on Jul 29, 09 09:47 PM

The word that birders use for a trip out to sea to watch birds. That's right many of us regularly pay money to get on a fishing boat and go a few miles out into the North Sea to throw fish back into the water hoping to attract some of the rarer seabirds that can occur in the North Sea at this time of the year.
I remember reading about these not long after I first started birding and being excited enough at the possibilities that I went off and organised a number of trips out of Blyth that were very successful in terms of the range of birds seen and some great sightings of Cetaceans - whales & dolphins -
Since then these trips have become a regular part of the birding scene in the North East with professionally organised trips departing regularly from the end of July into September.

Run in conjunction with Northumberland & Tyneside Bird Club but organised by the the regions top wildlife tour company Northern Experience they have built a strong following.
I went out last Friday (yes in all that rain) and whilst the trip was generally quiet due to the weather conditions it still offered superb views of some of our commoner seabirds such as Gannet and Fulmar both pictured below. Birds are brought close to the boat by 'chumming' or throwing out a special mixture of popcorn, vegetable oil and mackerel. So well organised are the trips that Martin Kitching who runs NEWT even had a special chum grinder imported from the US some time back. Whilst it was quiet on the bird front the weather was pretty spectacular, we were treat to lightning, two stunning rainbows and a spectacular red sunset over North Northumberland, the Red Arrows even made a guest appearance on their way in to the airshow.

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