by Margaret Breaks.

It was a horrible wet and windy morning, which started to show signs of clearing around 11 am so leaving Brian gathering sheep on the fell I headed for stocks. On arrival it was still raining so I sat in the car watching the tits and great spotted woodpeckers on the feeders until it cleared enough to head to the hide. Once in the hide, it was fairly quiet with small numbers of wildfowl together with a great crested grebe, the first of the year, and a pair of oystercatchers on the island.

The weather improved considerably and I decided to go round to the causeway and on to the viewpoint. As I was closing the hide door I heard a herring gull calling and looking down the reservoir saw that it was mobbing something on the water by the large buoy. Finding the bird in my scope, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. At first glance a gull, but the nostrils on top of the beak were clearly visible. Almost immediately, under pressure from the gull the bird flew revealing long straight wings with a distinctive grey brown colour, I was totally convinced, it was a fulmar!

It flew round the island, landed back on the water at the bottom of the bay, only to be immediately harried by gulls, within a minute or two it was in the air again. All the time I was frantically trying to ring Brian, no answer, while keeping track of the fulmar as it flew around. Several calls later the fulmar had landed and started to bathe, but was soon put up again by the gulls. This time it flew several times round New Close bay and then away down the side of the reservoir and out of sight. Despite searching the length of the reservoir, it wasn’t seen again.

From the time of the answer phone message at home, I was watching the fulmar from 1.35 to 1.55, it felt like two minutes rather than twenty, and I didn’t even get my camera out of my bag!

My main frustration was that no one else saw the bird, but my biggest relief was that at least it was something that I could confidently identify and yes a photo would have been nice still there’s always next time!