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Friday 25 March 2011

A Wader Day

Although I haven't had much birding time today, I only needed to have bothered with the first two minutes!

My first port of call was 'the farm gate' just north of Axmouth, where I was over looking an ever rising tide on the river. Almost as soon as I put my eye to the telescope, there was a huge male Ruff picking about in river side vegetation, with an adult Ringed Plover poking about on the mud near by. Then the calls of a Grey Plover rung out, and one flew through my scope view heading down river, landing just out of sight. This wader excitement warranted a text out, and Gav duly responded - although his main target was not on show (the Grey Plover - a scarce visitor to our little Estuary).

I drove to the next gateway down nearer Axmouth, from here two Med Gulls (a first-year and a stunning adult summer) were loafing with the Black-heads, and on the little remaining mud, six Dunlin, and both the Ringed and Grey Plovers...

Waders from either of these two gateways are always distant - hence the rubbish photo!

I don't know if Gav did 'connect' with this valuable year tick in the end; I phoned him several times, sent another text, and when I drove back to 'the farm gate' - he was gone!

So as the first paragraph suggests, I have nothing else to really say about any of the other birding I've done today. But I shall pad this post out a little more with a photo from Lower Bruckland Ponds...

A Coot!

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