The Juvenile Birder

 Seawatch and Intro to a Notepad!! We arrived at Flamborough Head at 6:40am, in hopes of seeing Pomarine and Long-tailed Skua. We saw a few Arctic & Great Skua as well as thousands of Manx Shearwater and Red-throated Diver. Suddenly, one of the seawatchers, Craig calls "adult Pom Skua heading north."  I desperately try to get my scope on it, but couldn't. He then lets me look through his scope and says that the bird was going to go through there in a few seconds. I looked through it, in eager anticipation and then there it was, with its spoon-like projections on the tail. I cherish observing the Pom Skua, before going back to my own scope. A few Sooty Shearwater and Little Gulls also flew past  afterwards, but nothing else. Craig taught me about how to identify Shearwaters and Skuas in the distance, and that identifying seabirds was a process of elimination, much of it guess work and he felt it necessary that people shout out their opinion and encourage discourse when...

 A  Quick Morning Lifer! We arrived at Conder Green at 7:20am and parked in a layby on the B5290 that overlooked Conder Pool on one side and a river/creek on the other. Recently, there had been a reported Temminck's Stint present. They are small waders, around half the size of a Dunlin. This bird was an adult and was moving quite a bit. We had come on the 1st August and the 2nd August in the evening but dipped it twice. With it being seen every morning and barely in the evening, we came earlier. We went to the screen and met someone who said they had seen in on the island full of lapwing but it went down a channel. We waited and soon enough the man said it was visible. I looked through with my scope and saw it as it foraged along the rocks. It didn't seem small when looking through a scope but with a naked eye it was tiny, I could barely see it with my binoculars. It then flew to the neighbouring island and foraged along the tip before going out of view. Then, someone who we h...