To continue the story of yesterday's encounter with the "Beast of Brixham". We drifted around in the boat, spotting Divers every few minutes or so and it was only a few minutes before we were close to the celebrity. The weather was windy but in the harbour where it was sheltered, it wasn't too bad at all. Andy, the skipper did a brilliant job trying to put us in the right place with the sun behind us but the "beast" wasn't interested in co-operation, constantly diving to feed and then coming up in the wrong place. At one point it splashed around, bathing and preening with a big wing flap. This was a great photo opportunity. (See below). We followed it in to the inner harbour where the shore-based Birders were excitedly running along the harbour-sde to get as near as they could. We held our position and I swapped seats in the boat with Dave who hadn't managed a special shot yet. I was now in the stern of the boat…. suddenly there was the beast, just off the stern, it had popped up with a massive amount of commotion. Great photo opportunities of course. I felt sorry for Dave, now the bird was at the stern whereas before the brow had been the best place to be but I needn't have worried because Dave finished up with brilliant photos as well. It dived down again and we followed it (at a respectable distance of course), out of the harbour and in to the main fairway where it seemed to have a favourite spot. Other Divers were in this spot and we saw the beast surface with a large flatfish which it swallowed quickly before I managed a good shot. Other divers were successfuly surfacing with crabs, obviously a good source of food. The afternoon continued successfuly and we went further out towards the Breakwater to look for the Black Guillemot that I had seen from the Dart Princess on Sunday's cruise. We easily found, it after a bit of searching, if it hadn't have been for the brilliant encounters with the "beast" then this would have been a special encounter.... more about that in my next post with photographs.
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