A Weekend of Wood Pigeons

It's been a lovely blue weekend down here in Seaton, and both mornings the sky view has been littered with huge Wood Pigeon flocks.  Absolutely brilliant, and fairly early too for the big movement.

Yesterday morning I watched for an hour from my back garden. I would have only recorded 3,400 Wood Pigeons flying south west down the valley if I hadn't worked out that from the bottom of the garden I could see the flocks of Wood Pigeons following the coast west through a narrow gap in nearby houses!  As a result I counted 14,600 birds fly west/south west in total.  There were several Stock Dove in the close flocks too.  A few Jackdaw flocks flew west, along with 65 Chaffinch, 30 Linnet, 24 Redwing (going in all directions), 22 Meadow Pipit, 18 Skylark, 14 alba Wagtail, 3 Reed Bunting and 1 Song Thrush.

Today was even busier, but completely different.  The view east along the coast from my chosen watch point (Beer Stables) showed there was patchy fog at various points.  This I think really confused the passage and I actually did really badly for small birds.  Five Redpoll over (a three and two singles) were the best, but all the usual species were in very low numbers.  The bigger birds however were spectacular.

Looking east just after sunrise.

Wood Pigeons began slipping through west in small flocks on a usual line soon after dawn, however after I had recorded about 1,600 birds, larger flocks started coming through at first on the coast, and then soon way out to sea.  By the end of my watch everything was so distant over the sea so I went to Seaton Hole to continue my count. There were huge flocks going through, some so distant that the flock shape was just a haze in the sky.  I picked up several of the most distant flocks only because I was watching a closer flock, which happened to pass them at the time I was watching.  An incredible sight, but I do wonder what makes them pass through so far out to sea!  Are they just cutting the corner over Lyme Bay and heading straight for Start Point?

By the time I had stopped counting I was at 31,300 birds, however during the next few hours whilst on the birdwatching tram I saw several thousand more flying south down the Axe Valley and then west. Dan at Sidmouth who did a longer count this morning recorded over 60,000 birds, which am sure would have been similar to my count if I had given it the time and effort he did.  Well done Dan!  

There were some really sizeable flocks of Jackdaws migrating through too, I had over 1,400 west.  Whilst on the corvids, I also had two single Magpies and a Jay over, which I think were all vis migging.

A Jackdaw flock. Love how they call all the time and often swirl around before continuing on

I then spent two hours leading the birdwatch tram which was lovely, in sunshine and no wind!  Best of all were a flock of seven egrets that flew in over town, three Little and four Cattle.  The Cattle Egrets then spent the rest of the morning with the herd of cattle between Seaton and Black Hole Marshes.  

Three of the Cattle Egrets, they were remarkably elusive in the juncus!

I have got a few days off this week, although Harry is off school on half-term so not sure how much time I will have out.  Check back later in the week to find out!