Belated Strumble Stuff

On Sunday afternoon a brief visit to Strumble was rewarded with a dark phase Arctic Skua beating up some small terns (sp). Some rain was threatening and I had turned up in the hope of it bringing migrants down. The Skua was extremely aggressive and kept up a relentless attack on one tern, whilst another (its mate?) followed, seemingly trying to distract the Skua. Eventually after an extremely prolonged attack the skua gave in without reward. It seemed likely that the rain (visible out to sea) had in fact brought the skua and terns down, which might explain why the skua was so persistent and the tern was unable to eject stomach contents to escape. Yesterday two Sandwich Terns were feeding off Newport Beach.