Two Storms Later

Well since the cold weather left us (and the rumoured even colder weather failed to arrive) we've been visited by Goretti and Chandra, with very little calm weather in between.  It's basically always been dull, wet and windy even outside of the named storms and the multiple weather warnings.

Looking north from Axmouth.  So much local flooding today, with many roads impassable

 

With a bit more wind today water would have come over Coronation Corner

 

I've (over?)covered the Little Gull in yesterday's post, so it's time for all the other bits and bobs that I've seen. And I may as well continue with gulls...

Huge numbers of gulls have been brought in by these storms, with incredible numbers over the sea and on the Estuary. It's been so much fun going through them, and it's been good to see such high numbers of Common Gulls.  Mediterranean Gulls have been well represented too, with several over the sea shortly before I counted 44 on the lower Estuary on the evening of 23rd.  There were 27 on the lower Estuary on 26th too (all adults except two first-winters and one second-winter), including multiple colour-ringed birds... 

Clearly very sleepy with all the feeding and flying they're doing!  Five adults pictured here, two colour-ringed

I wish all colour-rings were this easy to read! 

In with the large gulls I have managed to pull out two first-winter Caspian Gulls, although both were distant so photos are pretty poor...

This Casp on 23rd helpfully waved as I took the photo!

This Casp the following morning on Colyford Marsh may not have waved but it was one of only eight gulls so it couldn't really hide itself!

I also found this brute late afternoon yesterday (26th) and I am pretty sure it's a third-winter argentatus Scandinavian Herring Gull.  Tricky to be sure because it's not a full adult, but build and mantle colour seems to support my conclusion...

Left hand bird.  It's a poor photo but I've included it as it shows mantle shade well.

A hefty beast

Massive square head and a very thick beak - looks like a bird that can endure life in the Scandinavian region!

Another mantle comparison shot

Other birds of note that I've seen around the river recently include a vocal Golden Plover flying around in the mist over Seaton on 19th and seven Gadwall on Bridge Marsh on 25th when a storm-driven Great Crested Grebe was bobbing about on the Estuary.  The Avocet flock has dropped down to seven birds, but great to see most are still with us, and our wintering Greenshank numbers have doubled to two birds.

Great-crested Grebe

Both Greenshank together

 

Was nice to see the Avocets feeding, they're usually asleep when I see them!

 

Away from the Estuary I have managed to see a Firecrest at Seaton Hole and have finally come across some patch Dippers. They've been elusive since the start of the year so I was pleased to see two on the Coly just north of Colyton on 24th...

A patch Dipper finally

Am sure there's a few bits I've missed but I feel like this covers my most notable sightings.  

Anyone reading this who has been troubled by the recent floods, I wish you all the best.  Hopefully we've seen the back of the worst of it and can look forward to the season hopefully moving on. Take care all.

Little Gull

As I write this I am listening to yet another named storm thrashing against my front room window.  Even I am getting a bit bored with them now!

I've got so many things to blog about as have done well over the last week with several year ticks, some nice patch highlights and some decent bird numbers, however this next bird quite simply deserves its own post, so it's getting it...

South easterly winds in winter, well at many times of the year really, can be just the trick to bring some Little Gulls close inshore along the south coast. However, birding here I am very used to missing out on them, even if there has been an arrival or passage - we just don't seem to do well for them and almost always miss out.  

Sure enough, along the coast Little Gulls were being reported from the middle of last week, and sure enough, despite all my watches over the sea and checks of the Estuary and marshes, not a sniff for me.  It certainly wasn't down to a lack of trying, or a lack of gulls...

Looking towards Seaton from Seaton Hole on Saturday

This flock were feeding in the bay for several days

 

Although I did concentrate my efforts of this mega flock, Little Gulls have a sneaky habitat of suddenly appearing (and then disappearing) in the valley, whether it be on the marshes, on a small puddle somewhere, or on the Estuary amongst pre-roosting Black-headed Gulls.  So I tried my best to cover as much ground as I could.

To be truthful I was losing hope and had the feeling of 'not again' come over me - especially as several sites along the south coast were hosting multiple birds (double-figures at Teignmouth on one day!).  But literally on my last scan through this mega flock before work on Sunday morning, whilst I was cowering behind what little shelter Spot On was offering me during a heavy downpour, these dark underwings appeared in the distant murk...

Just left of centre

 

I was absolutely made up - an adult Little Gull! I had just another time to grab the above shot before having to head off to the office, which was at least a dry place to go! 

Whilst at work I was pleased to read many of the local birders had managed to catch up with it too, and when it got to lunchtime I thought I would try for it again. By this time (early afternoon) the weather had settled down considerable, and as a result the vast majority of gulls had dispersed.  However of the ones that were still present, one of them (and the closest one!) was the Little Gull...

Quite a lot closer than earlier!

 

I spent the next ten minutes completely mesmerised by this absolute beaut, feeding over the breaking waves at times less than 10 meters in front of me.  So delicate, elegant and at the same time looking kind of vulnerable.  A real treat.

I took so many photos, and can't help but post a whole load of them here.  Bird of the year so far for me, even if it isn't really that rare...

Those white wing-tips are the purest of whites

Such a graceful and elegant bird

  

About to drop down on to the surface

Little Gull incoming

  

Such contrast between the white bits and the dark underwings

 

It really does have a needle-fine bill, adding to its diminutive look

 

Could this be the best gull in the world?  Maybe not, but it's not far behind

Yes I am looking at you - love the wave action behind the bird on this pic

The last one.  What a star performer.

Sorry for over indulging in Little Gull, literally couldn't help it.  It was still present today, and with this storm hammering down now I think there is every chance it will still be around tomorrow. 

 

And I still have so much to write about the last few days, so do check back soon to read about everything else.

 

Finally, I just want to say a massive thank you for all the kind comments and feedback to my Lesser Whitethroat post, am so pleased it has gone down so well and been as appreciated as it has. Thank you.

 

 

The Seaton Lesser Whitethroats

On 26th November 2025 local birder Clive Williams found two Lesser Whitethroats around Seaton Bowling Green.  The first record of this species on patch during the winter months.  

I first saw them the following day, and have since spent plenty of time with them in a variety of different weather conditions and lights.  Most often I would just see one of the birds, with only three of my visits revealing both birds.  During a visit on 2nd January I suspected there were three present with two birds in front of me whilst I could hear what sounded like a third calling way to my south, however as this has never been confirmed I will only be submitting the two birds.

Two birds remain today, they really do look settled in for the winter along with several Blackcap and Black Redstarts feeding on the same rich supply of berries and insects.  

Out-of-season Lesser Whitethroats have been turning up in very small numbers in the UK for decades, however this must be the first time that more than one bird has wintered in one location?

Am sure like most birders, any report of a wintering Lesser Whitethroat will immediately make you wonder whether it is a bird from an eastern or Siberian population.  And although this is usually only provable by DNA analysis, I thought I would look in detail at these birds as in my opinion there are several features that set them apart from a typical C. c. curruca.

Before I go into these details and just to set the foundations, Lesser Whitethroat is currently split into several sub species, of which there are three on the British List.  Something I didn't realise until I was penning this is that Lesser Whitethroat and other similar species have recently been split out of the Sylvia genus and into the genus Curruca - not sure how I missed that!

C. c. curruca - This is the subspecies we are used too, breeding across temperate Europe and Asia, including England, Wales and southern Scotland. It winters in Africa (south of the Sahara), Arabia, and India, arriving in European breeding grounds from mid-April and departing by autumn.

C. c. blythi - The Siberian Lesser Whitethroat is a subspecies whose breeding range extends across Siberia and Central Asia, wintering in regions from Iran to India and sometimes reaching Europe as a vagrant or scarce migrant.

C. c halimodendri - The Central Asian Lesser Whitethroat breeds across the steppes and dry regions of Central Asia, including parts of Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Mongolia, wintering in Southwest Asia, and is considered a rare visitor to Western Europe and there has been a total of eight accepted records in the UK since 2003.

Right, it's time to get to the gritty bit of the post.  And I shall start by saying that although both birds look superficially similar, there are some subtle differences which I will detail under each heading where applicable.  

 

Structure

Size-wise they look like any Lesser Whitethroats to me, however presumably due to the shorter wings than what we see in curruca they often appear long-tailed, at times looking even a bit Long-tailed Tit-like (figure 1)!  

Figure 1. The smaller bird feeding high in 'the Clock Tower tree'

 

The plainer of the two birds does appear to be slightly smaller, have a shorter wing and has a more delicate bill.  The bill size of the other bird wouldn't look out of sorts on a curruca in my opinion.

Plumage and Bare Parts

From my first views of the birds, I would not have expected to have been able to write as much as I can in this section, but the more I have looked at them the more I noticed.  

The main striking difference is that overall they are brown birds (figure 2), not the grey and white of curruca (figure 3).  The smaller bird looks slightly sandier in colour to me than the larger one, and looks plainer in its overall appearance.

Figure 2. The larger bird in dull pre-sunrise light

Figure 3. A first-year curruca that I trapped and ringed at Beer Head on 2/9/15 - a completely different looking bird!

Head

Both birds show a really striking difference compared to curruca on their head, with the brown of the birds mantle creeping up into their hind neck and over the crown.  Both birds also show a far less distinct eye-mask than you'd usually expect on a Lesser Whitethroat.  The larger bird has a clear brown patch within the darker mask (figure 4), and the smaller bird has such a subtle mask that from some angles it doesn't look like it has a mask at all (figure 5)!

Figure 5. Note the warm brown patch on eye mask just below the eye, shows brown eye-lores too

Figure 6. The smaller bird, almost no mask to mention at all

 

Both birds have small line of white eye-liner under the eye, and a suggestion of a short and weak white supercilium over their eyes.  

Wing

Tertials appear more Common Whitethroat-like, with solid dark centres and very neat pale brown edges.  Otherwise the rest of the flight feathers are the same tone of brown, except for slightly darker primaries with neat pale tips (figure 7).

Figure 7.  On this view you could almost call this a Common Whitethroat.

 

Underparts

There's quite a big difference here with the two birds.  The larger bird has buff flanks with a cleaner centre to its belly and breast, whereas the smaller bird is more solidly buff underneath up to its throat and right down to its lower flanks.  Both have clean white throats, but due to the darker underparts of the smaller bird this one shows the greatest contrast (figure 8), whereas the white throat of the larger bird bleeds into the central breast area.

Figure 8. Can't get much more 'white throat' than that!

 

Tail

A crucial factor in Lesser Whitethroat subspecies identification, but for me seeing a spread tail proved just as hard as capturing a photo of one!  However I can confirm both birds have the amount of white that you'd hope to see on the outer tail feathers, with white on both sides of the feather spine, touching the spine on both sides (figure 9).  

Figure 9. Not a great photo but you can see the extent of the white and the feather spine.  This was the smaller bird.

 

Ideally there could be some pale on the tips of T5, and although I have seen some photos that suggest the smaller bird may have a small buff-tip, it's not striking enough for me to be certain.

 

Bare parts 

Although the bill size between the two of them does vary, colour-wise they are identical being mostly pale with a dark-tip to the upper and lower mandibles.

The larger bird has a slightly brighter and a paler iris colour, compared to the dull brown-grey iris of the smaller bird. This could well be an age thing as Lesser Whitethroat eyes change colour as they age.

Both birds have grey legs, with pinky tones around the feet. My impression is that the smaller bird has a little more pink than the larger bird, but would like better views to confirm this. 

Vocalisations

I actually heard the Seaton Lesser Whitethroats before I saw them, and was immediately struck by a Wren-like rattle, interspersed with some isolated and more typical Lesser Whitethroat soft 'tek' calls (sound clip 1).  The rattle call is not anything I have ever heard from curruca birds.

Although I do own a sound recorder, it wasn't with me when I needed it so all the below sound clips have been captured by recording video on my Nikon P950. I then converted the videos to MP3 sound files using an online platform.

Sound clip 1

When I first heard the rattle, having previously been aware of a Tit-like trill that halimodendri utter, I was really excited.  However that evening after some researching it was clear that the call of these birds were not really Tit-like, and that a typical feature of blythi is indeed a Wren-like rattle.  The fact they would also utter the single 'tek' call is another pro-blythi feature.

During milder and sunnier spells of weather, the larger bird would often also break into subsong, quietly muttering a rather generic Sylvia/Curruca warble (sound clip 2).  I don't expect this to be any use in subspecies identification and have in the past heard male curruca sound similar, lacking any of the typical rattles, however it does at least confirm that at least one of the birds present is a male.  If it stays into early spring I wonder if it will break into a fuller song which would be very interesting to hear.

Sound clip 2

Behaviour

It's impossible to pinpoint how much of the birds behaviour is down to the environment they are in and the food source they are using, or whether any of it is because of their subspecies-traits. So treat this section with caution as I would not at all be surprised if a wintering curruca in the same setting feeding on the same food would behave exactly the same.

Saying that, with the vast majority of my previous UK Lesser Whitethroat experience being migrant and breeding curruca between April and October, the behaviour of these birds is completely alien to me for a Lesser Whitethroat.

They are quite happy picking off insects or buds, in the highest parts of larger bare trees - very much in the fashion that a Long-tailed Tit would.  One of the birds in particular can often be found in the tops of a large bare tree near the Clock Tower.  Based on what we are used to seeing with this species in the UK, I would bet against any birder looking up at it without binoculars and thinking 'there's a Lesser Whitethroat'.  Just so un-Lesser Whitethroat-like!

However, most notably during periods of colder weather and in more recent weeks, they have completely flipped and suddenly I am seeing them often below knee height (my knees that is), foraging in garden plants and even hopping around on patches of bare ground/grass. This would often catch me out if I didn't know one was already there, walking around looking in the trees then suddenly I'd hear a 'tek' and see the white outer tail feathers as one explodes out from near my feet.

What seems to be their favoured food source is the white berries of the Cabbage Palm trees in the gardens and the Pitch and Putt green.  They can often be elusive feeding on these, however sometimes you'll be lucky and they will be sat out almost motionless munching away.  The Black Redstarts have been really enjoying these too.  Occasionally they'd disappear into nearby gardens and not reappear for sometime, so they aren't always guaranteed. 

For a map of their location and favoured spots, see figure 10 and the below text. 

Figure 10. Prime Seaton Lesser Whitethroat habitat. 

1. This is where I most often would see one or two birds, with the larger bird being particularly fond of this area. This is always where he was when I heard him softly singing.  Also worth noting at times the birds were seen to fly into neighbouring gardens from here.

2. The main crop of berries are here, and the birds would often flit between the palms here are larger bare trees on the northern boundary of the green.

3.  In this area is the large tree by the Clock Tower as mentioned above, as well as some apples that were supplied by local birder Kevin Hale, offering them an alternative food source.  It didn't take the the birds long to find them, particularly the smaller bird that seems to prefer this area.

Summary

As the rest of this post is rather long and wordy, I will keep this bit brief.

Without DNA analysis can I say with certain what they are, probably not.  However I am certain that the two Seaton Lesser Whitethroats are not of the subspecies curruca and I strongly believe they are of the subspecies blythi.  This is based off my observations of their structure, plumage and vocalisations, the latter being key in ruling out halimodendri.  

The visual differences between the two birds could be down to one or more factors.  The larger bird is the one that was heard subsinging, so we know this a male.  If the smaller bird was a female this could well account for many of the differences.  Or it could of course be down to where they have each originated from, could the plainer and short-winged bird suggest it's a purer blythi coming from deeper inside the known range?  Quite possibly I would suspect.

I don't think we will be able to get DNA anaylsis of either of these birds, unless something drastic happens, so presumably nothing will come of all this. However it's been a real pleasure having them with us, and it's been so enjoyable and eye-opening spending as much time with them as I have.  Every time I learnt something more it felt like a mini-win.

And that's that! Make of it what you wish!   

References

Birding Frontiers; Siberian and Dessert Lesser Whitethroats: https://birdingfrontiers.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/siberian-and-desert-lesser-whitethroats-2/

BOURC: https://bou.org.uk/

Nick's Bird Blog; The Identification of the 'Lesser Whitethroat' species complex: https://nicksbird.blog/2023/06/11/identification-of-the-lesser-whitethroat-species-complex/ 

Wildlife Diaries; Siberian Lesser Whitethroat - Spurn - 9th - 12th October: https://andybutlerdiaries.blogspot.com/2020/10/siberian-lesser-whitethroat-spurn-9th.html

 

Acknowledgments 

Huge thanks to Clive for finding these birds originally, and all the local birders who have assisted me with my wants and needs since (particularly Tim C).

Also a big thank you to everyone who offered me their often MUCH better photos to help illustrate this post, however I decided to use just what I've managed to capture for now.  I may well do another post with a few of the best though.

And finally, thanks to you for reading! 

 

A Mixed Bag

Friday saw Jess and I enjoy a seven mile walk from home to the Ship Inn in Axmouth to celebrate Dad's birthday - via the back lanes of Axmouth.

I was pleased to see my first Mistle Thrush, Fieldfare and Nuthatch of the year during the walk, however I still haven't come across any of the Brambling that have been seen by others!  

The numbers of small birds really is a delight to behold though, with my best sight being a single flock of 52 Yellowhammers (plus a few Linnets) bathing in some muddy puddles. I saw a further 15+ Yellowhammers during other parts of the walk too, the Axmouth to Rousdon farmland must be one of the best spots left in Devon for Yellowhammers? 

What a wonderful scene - almost felt like a view from back in time!

 

I ended the day with a quick look at Lower Bruckland Ponds, where I failed to find the two Egyptian Geese Phil had found earlier in the day.  There were however five Gadwall and another couple of Fieldfare.

Saturday started with a wander through woodland at the edge of the Axe patch.  The prize reward was a splendid first-winter Goshawk (probably a male) that flew so low over my head I could see each individual tear-dropped shaped spot on its underparts. Absolutely stunning.  I also came across three Crossbill, two Siskin and singles of Marsh Tit and Mistle Thrush.

I then had time for another quick look at Lower Bruckland Ponds where the two Egyptian Geese were this time on view...  

They were looking very settled, I wonder if we could have a patch first breeding record on our hands in the not too distant future...

 

After dark I went for a look around with my new torch, which resulted in a Woodcock (thanks Kev for the tip-off) near the Tower Service Garage in Seaton.  Really pleased to see one as my usual day-time roost spots for this species have been empty every time I've checked so far this year.

This morning during a brief spell out the highlight was good views of a lone Great Northern Diver on the sea off Seaton, along with one Great Crested Grebe, three Red-throated Divers and the lingering Common Scoter flock that contained exactly twenty birds.   

I spent the rest of the day at work, and then it got dark.  So that was it for me this weekend, but hopefully I will get a few windows of opportunity to get out during the week ahead.

 

Another Frosty Morning

Although the weather has turned much milder, I had a bonus frosty morning yesterday (Wednesday).  It was absolutely gorgeous, and I enjoyed the first hour of daylight out and about on patch.

The highlight was a surprise Bar-tailed Godwit roosting with Curlew north of Coronation Corner.  Regular enough every autumn and most springs here, but not a frequent winter visitor at all on the Axe.  Also on the Estuary the eight Avocet again and a female Gadwall.

Spot the Bar-tailed Godwit!  Size difference helps...

 

Female Gadwall 

 

I then spent some time around the Axmouth lanes, seeing plenty of birds but still no Brambling for me. Was great fun nevertheless, as time spent shifting through flocks of finches and buntings is always time well spent, as you never know what is going to pop up next.  It's almost as much fun as looking through gulls, almost but not quite.  Was nice to see a Brown Hare (my first since last autumn) and I also year ticked Red-legged Partridge..

Looking as cool as a Red-legged Partridge ever could in this frosty scene

 

Thanks for reading.  Check back soon for more. 

 

A Productive Weekend

Although as I write this the weather has changed, and the forecast looks more like something we are used to here during the winter months, rain and relative warmth, Saturday morning was actually a lot colder than I was expecting it to be.    

There was a really heavy frost across the patch, and most water bodies (except of course the river and sea) were completely iced over.  Presumably this was the case across much of the country, which may explain why I finally saw a non-Scoter duck on the sea!  

My first stop of the day on Saturday was indeed the sea front, and my first scan revealed an interesting-looking shape... 

My first view of it

 

A quick twist of the zoom and I could see it was a female Goldeneye!  Most certainly a species that can now be described as 'Patch Gold!'

Apologies for the photo quality - it was rather distant!

 

The decline in the frequency of patch Goldeneye records is hardly a surprise when you look at the numbers that now winter in the south west.  Their decline is really quite shocking, with sites that I have seen flocks at when I visited with my Dad 15/20 years ago, now hosting just one or two wintering birds, if any at all.  Red-breasted Mergansers are clearly going the same way too.

Anyway, this was the first Goldeneye on patch since March 2016, when three briefly dropped in on the Axe Estuary north of Tower Hide..

I messaged the news out, and am pleased that it stayed put for over 20 mins, even allowing a car-less Phil to twitch it on foot...  

More zoom but fewer pixels - and correct me if I am wrong but I think I've actually manage to capture its golden eye!

 

About five minutes after Phil's arrival, it took off and flew west around Beer Head. The only other birds on the sea were the wintering two Great Crested Grebes and Common Scoter flock, as well as a couple of Red-throated Diver and a couple each of passing Fulmars and Gannets.

Phil then joined me for an hour and a half zipping around the patch covering different sites.  Next stop was the Estuary where our Avocet flock was showing - now containing eight birds which is a really decent count for us.  Also a female Gadwall of note.

Conserving body heat clearly! Was going to crop this photo down more but love the light on the water and reeds at the back and the roosting gulls at the front.

 

We then headed into Axmouth, where Phil guided me to my first Marsh Tit of 2026 (almost to the tree!).  Next we drove out of the valley to look at the fields between Axmouth and Rousdon - which were absolutely teeming with small birds!  Several stops revealed over 1,000 Linnet, 400+ Chaffinch, 14 Yellowhammer, 4 Reed Bunting and a few Greenfinch.  Amazing numbers, but often frustrating as they're not at all easy to get amongst and check properly. Who knows what else is hidden in the stubble up there? Will need to give it more time...

Back into the valley where there was nothing unusual at Bridge Marsh, although it was clear to see Wigeon numbers have increased a bit, with just shy of 200 birds being my recent best count.  The same can be said about Lapwing, there are far more about now than there were a few weeks ago.

So that was Saturday, and now to today, which was far-less birdy for me as I have been at work....but it was really quite 'gully'!

My first decent gull of the day was a third-winter Yellow-legged Gull on the lower Estuary for a short while at 9:15am.  Having seen several dodgy dark-mantled and often yellowish-legged hybrids over recent months, it was good to see a bird that looked the real deal.

Wasn't actually that many gulls about, this was one of less than twenty present at the time

 

Although no gull heads are visible in this pic - mantles and their colours are!  YLG left, Herring back right and GBBG near right.

 

It wasn't an easy gull to photograph and observe , thanks to the awful weather and the fact it didn't once land on dry land! 

Got several photos like this, all showing its younger wing feathers

Then this evening, a bit more gull time at the north end of the Estuary revealed the continued presence of the Yellow-legged Gull, along with my first Caspian Gull of 2026 - a first-winter that I later learnt Gav had also spied from the Tower Hide.  His photos will be much better than mine, however I'll still post what I managed in the fading light...

...with added arrow!  Surprised I even managed this to be honest

 

Although it is a huge shame to see the blue skies and frost go, it's clearly not a coincidence the first bout of Atlantic-born weather fronts of the year have produced the first flurry of decent gulls.  Every cloud has a silver lining!  

 

 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone!  

And what a fabulously wintery start to 2026 it's been, with sub zero temperatures, heavy frosts and plenty of ice.  All things we are seeing far less frequently down here these days.  

There's been some cracking sunrises!

High water on a frosty Axe Estuary

 

 

I can't say this weather has produced any serious cold weather movements, but it has certainly shifted some birds about.   

Redwings for example have been around in far better numbers over the last couple of days than they have all winter, although Fieldfare remain oddly scarce (I saw one on 31st Dec - which was shockingly my first here in the second half of 2025 as I saw none in the autumn - and have not seen another one since), Blackcap numbers have also increased locally, and on the Estuary there's more Lapwing, Dunlin, Avocet (now six) and Teal around, and Tim C has seen our first couple of flocks of Golden Plover over Axmouth.  Snipe numbers have also increased, but probably only in their visibility not their actual numbers as we presumably always have several hundred here during the winter months, we just can't usually see them this well.

For me the sea has been the biggest disappointment as I have given it time each day.  We have a flock of Common Scoter feeding off Seaton, which peaked at 20 for me, but haven't attracted anything different, and other than two Wigeon that flew west one morning, I've seen no other species of duck out there. Presumably this means the bigger bodies of water in the UK haven't frozen up completely.  Red-throated Divers have been around in ok numbers, with 16 off Branscombe on 3rd and up to four off Seaton.  Our wintering Great Crested Grebe flock has doubled in size since New Year, from one to two birds, and auks have been fairly well spread about with both Guillemot and Razorbill present.  

Best bird for me of the New Year so far was a Merlin that I watched fly up from Colyford Marsh pre-sunrise on the 1st, heading out towards the Axmouth fields.  My first mid-winter Merlin here for well over a decade so was really chuffed with it, and I was even happier that it returned that evening for others to see.  At least one Marsh Harrier is still around too, I have seen it several times since the 1st.  

I last saw the Barnacle Geese on 2nd, so they've clearly moved on now, and are yet to be replaced by any of the greyer varieties.

Barnacle and Canada Geese in the frost

 

Lesser Whitethroats (at least two) remain around Seaton Bowling Green with Black Redstarts and this morning, three Blackcap.

There are some other goodies around that I've not seen yet, with Woodcock, Brambling and Cirl Bunting all gettable, and I will get to them as soon as I can.  Have just been too preoccupied spending any time I've had out trying to find some cold weather birds. 

Check back soon for more!