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Thursday 31 January 2019

A Foray to the Exe

Having seen the Bowling Green Marsh Yellow-browed Warbler last week, I knew how ideal it would be for Dad to see. So yesterday after a hospital appointment, I took him out for his first trip to the Exe since his stroke in October last year, a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon.  The Brent Geese must have heard he was visiting as they treated us to some superb fly pasts - probably about 6-700 birds in total...



The Yellow-browed performed equally well, with some exceptionally close view of it feeding alongside the road right down in the stinging nettles.  The very first view we had of it was pretty special too, as it flew low down the middle of the road right past us.  In this single flight the Yellow-browed went from bushes near the entrance of Goosemoor to roughly 80m the other side of the Bowling Green hide - presumably taking it from the end of its feeding circuit back to the beginning?  

Excuse the very frustratingly positioned vegetation in the below photo, which looks horribly like fishing wire!...



There's been plenty of reports of this bird having a dodgy right eye, it was pretty much fully closed whilst we were watching it.  Sadly it evidently now has problems with its left eye too, being half-closed. Poor guy, I don't rate his chances much :-(

I'm almost embarrassed to say that this trip out saw my first visit to Goosemoor.  A lovely reserve with several excellent vantage points...



And it's clearly a great place for Greenshank...



A truly wonderful and very very special afternoon out for me.  Great to be able to start repaying Dad for all the weekends he took me out birding when I was in my teens...


2 comments:

  1. Steve
    Sorry to hear about your Dad, and good to hear that he's out and about again.

    Rob

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    Replies
    1. Hi Rob. Thanks for you comment mate, yes, all by wheelchair at the moment but hopefully he will continue to make a good recovery! All the best, Steve.

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