A tenacious Tystie- Black Guillemot- at Ness Point, Lowestoft

I arrived at Gorleston just after 10am and received a tweet about a Black Guillemot drifting north from Kessingland, I decided to put on hold my shopping and make a serious attempt at refinding the elusive Tystie, a much needed potential addition to my Suffolk list. With global warming this northerly species is destined to become even rarer so it was now or never! As the message stated it was drifting north from Kessingland, I decided to make a concerted effort & look around Lowestoft. I needed help with this, so I rang Jane F who I knew would be interested in looking and we initially tried from Pakefield looking out from the CEFAS labs: there was no joy here, but we received news from Carl B who had checked Kessingland and Benacre to no avail. So I was hoping it had drifted/ swum even further north, we had to re-double our efforts! So we decided to double back checking Hamilton Dock along the way, nothing there either. So next stop was Ness Point, I had to answer the call of nature and walking back from the Tamarisk bushes to rejoin Jane, I had been checking the sea walking back to Jane but had seen nothing and then Jane excitedly and hurriedly gesticulated to me to come over quickly and well done to Jane amazingly she had it, Ferguson luck strikes again! and looking out we could see the excellent 1st winter winter plumaged Black Guillemot or Tystie (to give its Shetland or Norse name) swimming north just a few metres out from the sea defence rocks at the northern perimeter of Ness Point. A dumpy squat auk with obvious large white patch on the wing, its ID was obvious, being a textbook example! Amazing, I had been trying to see one of these in Suffolk for over 40 years and had agonisingly missed one flying past at Ness Point in November 2015 when it was tracked flying north from Slaughden to Lowestoft, typically I missed out by just 5 minutes! The Tystie was just about to swim into the sea past Ness Point and around sea off the North Beach. I quickly tweeted at 12.10pm immediately after i had seen the bird & put the the news out on the following What's App platforms: Suffolk BINS, Thursday Clubbers and Lowestoft Lounge Lizards. One major problem because of my recent lower back problems I had ditched my camera and had to quickly go home to retrieve it! Driving back along Yarmouth road, I could see James W cycling like a demon along Yarmouth road, heading for Ness Point! Having retrieved said camera, I parked at the northern end of Bird's Eye. As I disembarked from the car, I spied Rob H who was running back along the sea wall, he had a meeting he had to attend. James W was already there (having passed him on the way back as he was cycling to Ness Point!) and James B, Rene, Anthony W and others latterly including the late arriving Chris & Alison A. The bird was soon picked up quickly swimming north and was being swayed around by the 3 foot waves on a very vibrant sea. I managed to clamber on some rocks to get some height and get a little closer but it was just a little too far for me given the weather and having to lighten the exposure by +3/4 or even +1 which always softens the pictures. The conditions were extremely challenging with very poor light rough seas often obscuring the bird as 3 metres waves crashed onto the shore in front of it making it very difficult to pick up the bird within the camera sights The bird was compared to Guillemot (the nearest confusion species) shoter more rounded and compact and not as long and sleek as a Guillemot being an estimated 3/4 or 75% the size/ length of a Guillemot looking plumper and more pot- bellied. It had a black medium sized pointed bill with a broadish base tapering to a point (shorter than on Guillemot being roughly 2/3 the width of the headand had greyish head with darker area in front of the eye. It had a white beast and belly with some dark flecking on the breast sides. It showed white crescents bordering the eye (above & below) It showed an obvious white wing patch flecked with some brown indicating it was an immature 1st winter bird and blackish back flecked with white and white belly. All these features clearly ruled out the other Auk species. When it flapped its wings the underwing coverts were white bordering a black line on the leading edge and thicker black area on the back edge. When it preened it showed dark wine red legs. We followed the tenacious Tystie as it continued swimming north being regularly buffeted by the tumultous seas and towering waves, as it reached the northern end of the north beach area (roughly opposite the newly reopened Link's road car park), it briefly swam back south again pausing to first preen and then flap its wings 3X (where the underside were white and we saw the underwing was white bordering by a thin black line on the leading edge and thicker greyish smudge along the rear edge and then we saw it change direction continue its northbound journey. I fear for its health, as it is surely unusual for an auk to be this close to the shore and its eyes were mostly closed during the period of observation. The bird continued swimming north on the sea just off north beach keeping to within 20 metres of the shore and sometimes a little closer. The distinctive aroma of cigars indicated the belated arrival of Roger C who last saw the bird swimming behind the remnants of a groyne still heading north half way along Gunton beach where we finally left this fine northern denizen. One last thought, during the period of observation I didn't see the bird dive for fish once. Only the 13th record for Suffolk, it is still a very rare visitor in Suffolk with birds breeding in Anglesey in North Wales (the nearest breeding pairs) and the north- western coasts of Scotland prefering rocky areas or those older harbours with holes where they can nest. I was hopeful however that one day soon we would get a bird either that we would find or would be twitchable in Suffolk as there had been increasing sighting of Black Guillemots off Cley and Sheringham, North Norfolk in recent years.