Cory's Shearwater

With news of large shearwaters off Budleigh Salterton first thing (thanks Laurie for the text) I headed to Teignmouth after the nursery run for a 1hr 20 minute pre-work seawatch. Despite the stormy conditions visibility was pretty good (at least initially) and I immediately picked up on a steady stream of Balearic Shearwaters heading south - 142 were logged in total, including a couple of groups of 20+. No sign of any large shearwaters for over half an hour when I eventually picked up a Cory's Shearwater in the middle distance at 09:00, an extremely satisfying patch tick for me having missed out on the epic seawatch of July 2017! Four Storm Petrels also went through, with one only a few hundred metres offshore, along with five Arctic Skuas, three Sandwich Terns, numerous Gannets and Kittiwakes and just a handful of Manx Shearwaters.