Apologies - having now seen these photo’s other than out the back of a camera and exploded them the ducks are Widgeon but the distance and unusual light gave the appearance of Black Ducks some with white flashes - don’t rush to Minehead hoping to see Scoters.

Out boat fishing in the Minehead to Porlock area today – at about 1400hrs a distant flock of 50+ Scoters drifted up channel midway between Hurlestone Point and Minehead, a photograph showed that at least a dozen and possibly more of these were Velvet Scoters.
At 1615hrs when returning to Minehead presumably the same flock of 50+ birds were airborne flying east. Visible at the same time were two other flocks of circa 30 birds apiece, one flying up and one down Channel, so at least 110 Scoters in all. These three flocks would have been visible to anyone with decent optics at Greenaleigh and probably from Minehead Harbour Wall.
Apart from the usual suspects there were 10 Common Gulls hanging around the boat as well as what “might” have been a 2nd winter Yellow Legged Gull, it did seem to have a more robust beak than a Herring Gull and Merlin was pronouncing YL Gull when it called, although I’m doubtful if the call of a YL Gull is any different to that of a Herring Gull.

A varied selection of seabirds off Greenaleigh Point this morning between 8 a.m and 9.15 a.m.: 25 Kittiwakes, 2 Common Scoter, 2 Razorbills, 1 Guillemot, 1 Gannet, 1 auk sp. All birds were flying west. Unusually some of the birds passed close in, about 100 to 200 metres out, including the Gannet, several Kittiwakes and auks. The wind was a fresh north westerly and high tide around 9.
Seawatching off of Exmoor/West Somerset is a bit hit and miss. Sometimes the conditions can look good but yield disappointing results, or the birds can be too far out so not easy to identify. In general the best results come following fresh or strong westerly or north westerly winds, and up to 2 hours either side of high tide. The birds get blown up the Bristol Channel and then can sometimes be seen flying west back out i.e. down channel. By far the majority of birds seen are birds travelling down channel. Myself or David Ballance have been checking off of Minehead since last Thursday but today was by far the best.