Eyeball Paul's Birding: Brunnich's Guillemot Twitch Portland Harbour 28th December

On Friday 27th December I received a phone call from Allen Worgan, who I had met earlier in the year down at the Semi-P twitch on Hayling Island, asking me if I wanted to go to see the Brunnich's Guillemot. I wasn't feeling to great as I had a cold, so said I would not be joining him. Later that evening I was feeling much better so called Allen to see if he was still going and if offer of a lift was still on, it was. Allen would pick me up at 04:30 Saturday, as we would stopping to pick up his brother Chris in Basingstoke. I then got all my kit ready set the alarm for 04:00, and went to bed.
04:00 came round and I got up quietly so not wake anyone else, Allen arrived just as I was finishing my bowl of porridge, loaded up the car & of we went to pick up Chris. With us all in the car Allen drove down to Weymouth, we popped into Mcdonalds to use the toilets, and I got a coffee, then to a garage for some lunch. We then went to the car park oppersite Portland Castle, as it was still dark we waited in the car and watched other birders arriving. When it was light enough we left the car park and headed to Portland Marina, where we soon had a first views of the Brunnich's Guillemot. It liked to follow the harbour wall and get level with the castle, then turn around come back into the marina and go around the moored boats, diving alot as it went. This made for quite an amusing sight as birders followed it up and down, we stayed put and got great views over the three hours we were there as it passed close by to us. Some of the photographers with their huge lenses went down to the waters edge, one slipped and nearly toppled in, which made alot of birders laugh. Birds seen: Black throated Diver, Great Northern Diver, Little Grebe, Cormorant, Shag, Grey Heron, Eider, Red-breasted Merganser, Oystercatcher, Black-headed Gull, Herring Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Guillemot, Brunnich's Guillemot, Razorbill, Black Guillemot, Kingfisher, Pied Wagtail & Carrion Crow.
We left just as heavy rain/hail arrived, Allen stopped at the garage in Weymouth for some energy drinks, we then found out where the Glossy Ibis was so we went to Radipole Park Drive to the flooded playing field, and we had a quick look watched it feeding and then flying to be in one of the goals for Radipole Park Rangers, a nice bonus before Allen drove us all home.