Hello and help

[highland red]

I'm new (just today) on the forums so I hope you'll bear with me on this.

I am a keen (but novice) bird watcher and I was down on the seafront in Thurso last Sunday afternoon just scanning around with my binoculars and as I was watching a sea fishing charter boat (Stormdrift I think) when I spotted a huge bird (very dark/black plumage) around the vacinity of the boat.

It was a fair distance away but even when I tried to allow for the scale etc. the bird appeared to be very big indeed.

I felt sure that someone on the boat must have seen it but I don't know for sure.

I would love it to have been a white tailed eagle but I didn't think that they came this far East, and also if so, that someone else would have seen it before.

I'm used to seeing the usual Buzzards, Kestrels' and so on: but this bird was way bigger than anything I have previously seen. (enormous wings).

Can anyone help me with this. I took a note of the time (around 14:45 hrs).

Thanks.

P.S. This is not a "wind up".

[nirofo]

Could have been a Great Skua (Bonxie) they usually hang around fishing boats as they gut their catch, they are very dark and can appear quite large if you're not familiar with them. Another possibility is a juv Gannet, very dark almost black and quite a large bird, (bigger than Greater Black-backed Gull). They will also frequent fishing boats as they throw unwanted or undersized fish from the nets back into the sea.

Keep looking, there's plenty of them around just now.

nirofo.

[highland red]

Could have been a Great Skua (Bonxie) they usually hang around fishing boats as they gut their catch, they are very dark and can appear quite large if you're not familiar with them. Another possibility is a juv Gannet, very dark almost black and quite a large bird, (bigger than Greater Black-backed Gull). They will also frequent fishing boats as they throw unwanted or undersized fish from the nets back into the sea.

Keep looking, there's plenty of them around just now.

nirofo.

My first thoughts were drawn to a Skua, given the location, but this was definitely not a Skua as I am familliar with them.

Thanks for the help and I suppose I should concentrate more on my identification skills.

The other problem I had was that I only had eyes on it for a short time.