Strumble dairy 12/9/23...

 Weather: WSW2 sunny spells sea state 2 good visibility 14.00-16.00.

I copped onto a couple of Risso’s as soon as I looked through my bins. The sea was calm the viz’ great and they then disappeared without trace.
A big feeding mob of mainly gulls along with auks was drifting slowly east on the tide. I focused the scope on them getting the briefest view of what looked like a small shearwater, which disappeared within the mob of feeding gulls without a trace.
A distant arctic-type Skua passed at about five miles, did not disappear, but might as well have as it was not much more than a speck.
And then a pod of at least three Risso’s turned up near where I lost the first two, about an hour later, they were distant and not giving great views but at least they sporadically surfaced as the progressed, west to east.
As I tracked them A shearwater passed by in the opposite direction, a Manxie, but welcome. As the Risso’s went out of view I got a distant group of 30’ish commons in the scope which followed the same path, which then put me onto a very dark Balearic Shearwater heading west!
An interesting and intriguing couple of hours!
Sorry no pic's