Getting Back To It

First of all, I have to say thank you so much for all the comments, emails, texts and tweets in response to my previous post. I do have more to say, but I'm not going to. It's time to draw a line under it...

_________________________________________________________________________________

...and get back to what this blog is about.

We have been blessed with flat calm seas for a few days, and decent cloud cover making conditions ideal for sea scanning. Bird wise though there has been very little on the sea, with species you'd expect to see several of (Great Crested Grebe, Common Scoter, Cormorant, Shag) few and far between, or totally absent.  Thankfully though the last few days have seen a bit of quality appear!

I haven't seen Long-tailed Duck here for six years, and before that I'm pretty sure I've seen just one other. So you can imagine my thrill when I picked up two feeding in the bay off the Spot On Kiosk yesterday morning. Both are immature/female-types, but beyond that I've never been too confident at ageing/sexing distant non-adult male LTD's. One was considerably whiter than the other - and if I had to place bets I'd say they were both female's, and ad and an imm. Most pleasing is that they seem settled, and are still out there feeding this morning.  Also yesterday a drake Red-breasted Merganser flew around the bay for a while which was nice, as was my first settled Great Northern Diver of this winter.

This morning I gave Branscombe its second look of the week, and had two more settled Great Northern Divers, along with a fly by Red-throat.  There were way more Kittiwakes and auks off here than in Seaton Bay, so hopefully regular visits here will turn something up.  A snoop around the sewage works here earlier in the week showed four Chiffchaffs and good numbers of the expected species - sadly no Yellow-browed or Dusky.

Tuesday morning I undertook my usual woodland bird survey near Colyton. Nice to see my first four Woodcock of the winter, along with a couple of Fieldfare, 10 Redwing and a fly over Golden Plover. All very wintry! 

There is a very winter feel to the birding scene now, vis mig appears to have all but stopped and the hopes of a late autumn rarity seem far flung.  Before it did end I gave Beer Head probably it's last visit of the year, on the 15th.  It was nice to see a few Wood Pigeons flying over NE, only 1350, but it was my biggest passage of the year (which is terrible!). 

 

On the ground, four Song Thrush, three Redwing and a Chiffchaff were expected, but a late Wheatear not so...

Looks a bit more exciting in this picture than it actually was - always just a Northern sadly.

So there you have it, autumn 2013 done.  And now we are into the last phase of the year - the last phase of my year listing year.  Long-tailed Duck was my 188th species for the year, which is a notable number as its the first guess from Steve's 2013 Patch Year Listing Competition.  Here's a reminder of who guessed what I'd end the year on...

188 - Andrew  
189 - Karen    
190 - Phil      
191 - Julia      
192 - Bun    
193 - John O' Sullivan  
194 - Col      
195 - 'Corky'     
196 - Dave H      
197 - Jonny      
198 - Skev      
199 - Tim White    
200 - Gav

201 - Sue Murphy  
202 - Catharine    
203 - Sue Smith

So Andrew, if the year was to end now, you would be the winner. But I'm afraid it doesn't, and I'm sure there's at least a few more year ticks in it...
 

Why bother...

I probably shouldn't write or send this post - but I'm going to.

First of all, a brief summary of recent events.

A few days ago news broke of a Devon first, a Dusky Thrush, present in a private garden in Brixham for about eight days. The situation and location meant the decision was taken by the locals that news could not be released nationally whilst the bird was present.  As County Recorder I was informed of the presence of this bird, but as any County Recorder would do, the wishes of the land/home owner had to be respected. A horrible situation to be in yes - but it's one of only a few down sides to being County Recorder, compared with endless up sides. 

Once the bird had departed, I was asked to join the discussion about how best to release the news. Do we wait until the BBRC report is published in 2014?  Well in my opinion, there was no reason to withhold the news any longer - the bird had gone so the reason for withholding the news had gone. Any further 'supression' would have been pointless.

With the news release, I felt there should be some pictures to go with the text. I was well aware of the discussions about the purity of the Kent Dusky Thrush earlier this year, and thought including photos would help/enhance this discussion. Not only that, it would also show everyone instantly that this was indeed a Dusky Thrush and not a weird leucistic Redwing or such like. If photos weren't released when the news went out, how long would it have been before people asked to see photos?  A few minutes? 

Ok, now I am removing my County Recorder hat. This is Steve Waite the patch birder...

 

Now I certainly think my opinion was wrong about releasing the news so soon. In fact my opinions have changed about many things in many ways over the last day or so. 

First of all, I must state I'm only talking about the absolute minority here.  Thank you to most for being understanding about this difficult situation.

1/ Do home owners have any rights?   I am a home owner - should I ever have to explain why I let certain individuals into my house? Surely it is up to me who I invite in - for whatever the reason. Should I also be expected to open my doors wide for anyone and everyone to come in?  Please, I've only been a home owner for a year, so I need to be told if I'm wrong here....

2/ Why do some birders/twitchers think they have the right to see every bird? Or think they have the right to know about every bird immediately...

3/ Why do people who do not know the full facts, think they do and speak like they do. And even more annoyingly, think they know MORE than the people that DO know the full facts. I don't know the full facts about the Dusky Thrush, but I trust the judgement of the people that do. Does that make me naive/stupid, or just a normal person?

Something I do understand entirely is how this news release would have been a right punch in the face for so many - a bird as epic as a Dusky Thrush right here in Devon! But that is no excuse for the above, or for the down right nasitness aimed at the lucky ones that did see it (although I'm sure none of them 'feel' lucky at all!). And how about the poor chap who found this crippling rarity? What on earth has he done wrong!? And I can't begin to imagine how he must be feeling. 

I'd just like to stress yet again, this isn't a moan at birders/twitchers in general. It is me feeling extremely exasperated and quite simply stunned at the behaviour of just a few.

In my ten-ish years of what I'd describe as 'being a birder' - I have never felt so low because of my hobby. So so much worst than missing the Pacific Swift that flew directly over my parked car - that I was sat in! And boy was that painful. This is on another level altogether.

This episode has made me question the whole idea of birding, my number one (two if Jess reads this!) passion in life - it's what I enjoy doing day in day out and it has always given me so much happiness. This is the first time this has happened to me, and I'm finding it so very sad. It is the reason I am up at 2am posting this when I should be asleep. All very upsetting to witness, so much nastiness created by one bird.  One blob of feathers.

Before last week I would have dreamed to have a major rarity in my garden. Not any more. In fact do I want to find a major rarity ever again? What's the point.....

   

Monster Monday, Tick Tuesday and a Wasted Wednesday

Monday was something else - birding from my back door felt like birding on the east coast!

Annoyingly I had to work for a few hours Monday morning, but on my return home, looking out from the kitchen I was astounded by the numbers of thrushes.  The weather was dreadful, with very poor visibility, but this made it.  Large flocks of Redwings were dropping out the sky, landing on nearby trees for a few minutes, then flying off again. Flock after flock after flock. Other flocks were flying over much higher with out stopping, and only visible for a few seconds as they came under the low cloud. I saw about 500 Redwing in less than half hour, along with at least ten Fieldfare - my first of the autumn.  

If this wasn't enough, a Black Redstart appeared on a house roof just down the road from our back garden. This is my second one from the garden, but my first anywhere on patch this autumn. I watched it for about ten minutes feeding, before it dropped down into a back garden and out of view.  

What exciting birding!! And whilst drinking tea in a warm and dry kitchen! :-) Really reminded me of my Spurn days, when I could stand in the door way of 'Dun Birding' and watch migration in action.

Late morning I popped out for a look along the Estuary but learnt of the Little Gull movement at Portland - a species I still need for the patch year list! I went straight to the sea front and spent most of the rest of the day sea watching. I watched 11:25 - 13:05 and 14:00 - 15:10, and unbelievably saw NO Little Gulls. Portland witnessed a record breaking passage with 1500 of these beautiful small gulls passing the Bill and Chesil Cove, and Seaton Bay had none. As every minute passed the wind dropped and weather improved, which I think was our downfall - I reckon they were just too far out by the time they'd reached us. If I had started seawatching at 8am though, I think it would have been a different story. Or maybe if I'd gone to Branscombe.

Forgetting about Little Gulls, it was a surprisingly productive sea watch. The conditions during the night before must have been perfect as the conditions during the day certainly weren't! This is what went into my notebook from the two watches:

2 Brent Geese
20 Wigeon (hard to tell proper passage though as lots of birds from the valley were on the sea)
32 Teal (same as above!)
1 Shoveler (fem - may have come from the Estuary)
3 Pintail (eclipse drake and 2 fem west with Wigeon)
c100 Common Scoter (flocks flying both ways so hard to count, 60 biggest flock)
2 Velvet Scoter (two flew west in a flock of 24 Common Scoter)
1 Red-breasted Merganser (fem west)
2 Red-throated Diver 
2 Balearic Shearwater (flew west together)
3 Mediterranean Gull (flew west together; ad, 2nd winter and 1st winter)
c30 Kittiwake (no obvious passage, just birds feeding, plus a juv out of the Estuary)
1 Pomarine Skua (juv flew east, but appeared to drop down on sea)
2 Sanderling (both singles close west)
45 Dunlin
70 small waders sp. (presumably Dunlin, a 40 and a 30, but too distant - couldn't eliminate White-rumped Sandpipers)
5 Curlew
1 Bar-tailed Godwit

So as you can see, not a  bad haul for here. I was disappointed not to get a stand out bird - although I may well have fluffed a couple. A Common Scoter flock flew in to the bay and they were all just Common Scoters, but when I saw them again several minutes later flying out of the bay they had two other ducks with them - not Scoters. They looked like aythya's, and one had grey on the mantle. I couldn't see any wing bars (but they were mega distant) so am hoping they were 'just' a pair of Pochard and not the gripping blocker Phil has on his patch list...

I finished the day with a look up the river valley. Two more Med Gulls were the best, although the Starling roost was nice to watch. We've had up to 4,000 roosting in the valley for at least a week or so...

And here's a short video..

Tuesday dawned, and despite the fine conditions, I just had to look at the sea again. This time I gave Branscombe a go. I wasn't expecting it to be anything like Monday, but I did manage something I hadn't the previous day - a patch year tick!!  My totals were:

4 Brent Goose

2 Pintail (flew west)

8 Common Scoter

1 Black-throated Diver (flew west)

1 Red-throated Diver (flew west)

70 Kittiwake (west)

30+ auk sp.

So a pretty underwhelming year tick yes - and you could say an over due one too, but I think 'real' Black-throated Divers are actually pretty rare down here in Devon. It's taken me 11 and a half months and about 125 divers to see one this year!

My overwhelming thought of Wednesday was of disappointment. With the first frost of the autumn and bright blue skies I just had to go up to Axe Cliff for some vis mig action...

Sadly the vis mig never really got going.  I was hoping for a strong Wood Pigeon migration, but in the end saw less than a thousand. They were going in all directions too, probably due to the lack of wind.  Singles of Brambling, Reed Bunting and four Lesser Redpoll were the best of the little over head migration, with another five Reed Buntings on the deck amogst 10+ Yellowhammers and c80 Linnets.

And now we're on Thursday, but I've not had chance to go birding today. Hopefully I'll go for a wander somewhere tomorrow as the weather looks like it's going to be nice.

More On The Duck

Just a quick post - with the superb news that yesterday I saw my 25th patch Glossy Ibis! Yes, finally the Axe has bagged one this year, with a visiting birder being the lucky finder, although Tim White stumbled upon it a little later without knowing it was there.  Superb bird and a cracking patch year tick! I know 25 seems like a lot of Glossy Ibis to have seen on patch, but 18 were in one flock and flew over very rapidly (and distantly!), and the other sighting were of six that spent less than a day here. 

Had an interesting tweet this morning from Ian Ballam, to let me know he recognised my (presumed) hybrid RuddyxCommon Shelduck.  It was in Poole Harbour Dec 2012 - Feb 2013, and here's a thread on Birdforum about it...

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=246058&highlight=Duck%2C+Poole+Harbour

Thanks Ian!

Wonderful Wildfowl

This is going to be a very duck orientated post, as pretty much everything I've seen that's notable has been a form of wildfowl!!

We are a week into Novemember, and I am at 185 for the patch year list. I'm going to have to be honest now and say I think 200 this year is impossible. There's only been 190 species recorded by everyone on patch so far in 2013, so I reckon even if I saw 100% of all the species seen on patch by the end of the year then I still wouldn't be at 200! Oh well. I can't wait to see who wins the competition though - I won't stop trying!

On the last day of October I was on 184, so what was number 185?  On Monday morning, a look along the Estuary was made a lot better when I picked up a Pochard flying up, and then back down the valley north of Coronation Corner. It appeared to land on the river somewhere around Colyford Marsh, but a look from the Farm Gate afterwards failed to locate it.  Pochard has become a great rarity here, and this was the first record for the patch in about two years!!

Just before the Pochard excitement, a sea watch revealed almost as much excitement with three Velvet Scoters. First of all, two flew in from the east and landed distantly off Beer. Then just a few minutes later I picked up another one, on its own, flying west far out.  I love Velvet Scoters so was well happy with these, and it certainly made up for the lack of anything else on the move at sea.

Going back to the end of the previous week, I had a female Pintail and drake Shoveler on the morning of the 1st. These were on the Estuary along with the lingering Curlew Sandpiper (which I last saw on Monday 4th) and Ruff. The Spotted Redshank is still knocking around too.

Back to the sea, and on Tuesday morning a Red-breasted Merganser and two Brent Geese were the highlights. With a look at Lower Bruckland Ponds showing the continued presence of the two Tufted Ducks. A nice surprise were calling Bearded Tits from the Farm Gate, I didn't see them though so have no idea how many or where exactly they were!! Possibly the same birds that Fraser found on Black Hole Marsh last month?

A seawatch yesterday morning didn't show any wildfowl of note, but it did show plenty of Kittiwakes! Sadly though variety was lacking - and I still haven't seen a 2013 patch Little Gull!

Then there's today. All was quiet, then this thing flew in and joined the local Shelduck... (apologies for the poor photos - it was very distant)

.....WTF!??

I knew it wasn't Ruddy, Cape or Australian Shelduck, but whatever it was it was STUNNING! Really gorgeous deep velvety red, and in flight it looked superb with flashes of bright white!

The nearest I can find online is this http://www.flickr.com/groups/hybridbirds/discuss/72157601886415063/ which is a CommonxRuddy Shelduck hybrid. A new one for me!

Steering this post away from the duck-theme, I've just heard a few Crossbills calling from the back garden. Sadly I couldn't see them but they were flying west.

Garden Birding

This is our garden...

All a bit wooden!

You couldn't really call it a haven for birds, and most days a couple of Wood Pigeons, the odd Collared Dove and the local flock of House Sparrows are all we see in it. For some reason today though it's been a bit mad and since dawn I've seen ten species of birds actually IN the garden! The above three species plus Greenfinch (2), Chaffinch (2), Robin, Blackbird (3), Great Tit (2), Blue Tit and Magpie.

It just shows that if you put food out, and make your garden as bird-friendly as you can, you WILL get birds wherever you are.

The Great Storm of 2013

Early on Monday the biggest storm since 1987 came.... and went... 

I'm not saying it wasn't bad, because it was, but it lasted only a couple of hours, and by the time dawn came the wind had already shifted to the west and skies were clearing. It actually turned into quite a nice day!  We were actually true victims of the storm, as a rather large branch landed on Jess's car and caused this...

Armageddon!

The sea on Monday really was disappointingly poor, with a juv Kittiwake along the beach early on being the only 'storm driven' bird noted. The highlight of all the sea watching wasn't even a bird, but a Grey Seal that appeared for a few minutes close in.

The Estuary and valley were equally poor, with a second Tufted Duck at Lower Bruckland Ponds getting 'bird of the day' award!  

Does this qualify as a flock??

Although the wind has made the news, the mildness hasn't. With the exception of today, it's been so warm for late Oct. As a result I'm still seeing many Migrant Hawkers and Common Darters, and more amazingly, on Monday 28th this Common Blue Damselfly...

Sorry it's a bit out of focus!

Tuesday was much calmer, and as a result there was a bit of vis mig. Best of all being my first Brambling of the autumn west over, along with two Lesser Redpoll and plenty of Chaffinches.  Also saw my first 'vis mig' Wood Pigeons and Starlings of autumn 2013. Also had a Swallow flying around over the Estuary later in the day.

This morning was much quieter for vis mig, with the only notable birds being on the Estuary; a late Curlew Sandpiper with five Dunlin and the lingering Ruff and Spotted Redshank.

With the amount of good birds turning up in the south west at the moment there's got to be a chance of something good appearing.  Ideally I'd like a few more year ticks before November begins, oh - that's the day after tomorrow!  Just where has this autumn gone... This year in fact...

Watching The Waves

Yesterday, although the weather wasn't quite as suitable for sea birds, I still had a couple of looks over the sea. I've been hoping for a Little Gull or two as there's been a few birds (mostly Black-headed Gulls) feeding close in off the sea front.  No Little Gull (still hoping!), but there was a lovely juv Arctic Tern.  This bird will soon be continuing on its migration to the Antartic. Incredible...

I only included the lower shot to show how close in it actually came at times!

On my first scan with my bins I saw a chunky and pale almost white wader flying very low over the sea, close in and heading for the beach - but lost it within seconds. It may well have just been a Sanderling but I would like to have known for sure. Frustrating!

The day before a group of 12 Brent Geese west and two adult Yellow-legged Gull again on Colyford Marsh were the highlights.  

Right must go, it's lunch time...

A Trio Of Ticks

After a post moaning about the lack of patch year ticks - along come three!

Rewinding back to Friday, and I was just having a bite to eat before work when Fraser (our reserves warden) phoned.  He could hear Bearded Tits calling from the reeds on Stafford Marsh, and whilst on the phone saw four fly out and head for Black Hole Marsh. I was out the door and down the reserve in moments - and moments later the calls of Bearded Tits could be heard from the platform.  A minute or two later along came a tram and up went the Bearded Tits, all four, although they soon dropped straight back into the reeds. Another minute or two later and up they went again, but this time stayed low and flew over Black Hole Marsh, and east over the tram line.

Bearded Tit really is a rare bird, these were only my second ever, with my first being equally brief. Many thanks Frase for this unexpected year tick.

With all the wind and rain, I had high hopes for today. And with the sea being quiet in recent days I decided to spend my morning in the valley. The weather meant Colyford hide was the most obvious choice - from here you get a good view over the flood water on Colyford Marsh and Colyford Common.

Flood!

My most painful dips this year have been with Garganey - I managed to miss three spring birds.  I thought I'd missed my chance with this species to be honest, but on Sunday noticed a few new birds had been reported in the UK. And guess what was with the first flock of Teal I looked at this morning...

At the back in front of that Lapwing

... a Garganey! My latest ever too. I can't tell you how happy I was to see this - and it instantly made looking through hundreds and hundreds of Teal this autumn worthwhile!

I spent another hour in the hide, and there were superb numbers of birds about (particularly ducks and gulls), but I couldn't find anything else better than an adult and first-winter Med Gull. Or maybe I did...

I picked up a darkish mantled gull in a distant and very large flock of mostly Great Black-backed Gulls. I thought it was going to be a Yellow-legged, but then it showed its legs, they looked pale pink!? It had a clean white head and looked otherwise ok for this species. Then the sodding thing turned and showed its head and bill in profile - it was at this point the shakes came over me as it looked a lot like an adult Caspian Gull!!! Stupidly the only camera I had was on my phone, so I got a few very poor pics this way, but when I put my eye back to the scope it wasn't there. And that's where this story ends, as I never saw it again. So gutted.  Anyway, for what it's worth, here's the 'best' pic...

Anyone care to comment?

I said early in this post how poor the sea has been, and it really has been. I don't just mean here, look at Portland Bird Obs website. We've had gale force southerly winds, with low after low coming through - but the totals have been pathetic! Where are the Sooties and Grey Phals?  Mid afternoon I thought I would give the sea another chance though - so headed down to the Spot On...

...and it was rubbish!  There was quite literally nothing passing, and after twenty minutes I decided to give up. Wandering back to the car, one last glance at the sea with my naked eyes gave me the shock of the year - SABINE'S GULL!!!  A juv Sabine's Gull was just there, flying west close in, its distinctive wing pattern immediately obvious. I grabbed a few record shots, but pleasingly it stopped flying west and joined some feeding Black-headed Gulls. I got the news out, then legged it down to the shore to take some more pics...

I know not everyone likes gulls - but come on...

 And here's a quick (and rubbish) video...

It stayed here for about ten minutes, then drifted further out and sat on the sea. A few minutes later it took off and flew west - and we last saw it about five minutes later towards Seaton Hole. Stunning, stonking, beautiful, elegant, buoyant.... I could go on and on. WHAT A BIRD!!! Look how dark the head is, the delicately forked tail with the black band, and don't get me started on that wing pattern....

Isn't it funny how one last glance at the sea turned this sea watch from dire to incredible. If I had walked back to my car the other way (the shorter way!) I simply wouldn't have seen it, and this Sab's would have been loitering out here without any of us knowing!  This was my second Sabine's here, and quite similar to my first - stupidly close in, and there was nothing else moving over the sea.

After this excitement I had another look up the valley. The Estuary was empty, but from the farm gate I was pleased to see lots of large gulls.  Sadly my Caspian-ish thing wasn't in amongst them, but two lovely adult Yellow-legged Gulls were. I then noticed a few gulls were starting to gather on the Estuary right in front of the Tower Hide, and in amongst them was yet another Yellow-legged Gull, this one a first-winter. Even at the distance it was, still very distinctive and proved its ID nicely by flying up and down a few times.  Later Gav and Tim saw this bird and took some great photos (click on their names to see the pics).  Also from the farm gate were six Ruff with the Lapwing.

What a day!!!

 

Patch Year Ticks Harder To Find Than Four Leaf Clovers

It really is getting annoying now!  There are so many possibilities when it comes to potential patch year ticks at this time of year, so so so many. Several being highly possible too - I mean come on, how rare is Pochard!?  Neighbouring patches and other sites along the south Devon/Dorset coast are getting birds left right and centre that would be additions to my 2013 patch year list - but they just aren't coming here! 

Saying that, the last two days have seen an improvement in the birding.  And tomorrow looks like it may be quite good too...

The strong wind and heavy rain that I woke up to yesterday morning ensured my first stop of the day was Seaton Beach for some sea watching. The conditions were a bit too inclement though...

Pants visibility

I knew the front was going to move through quickly though, so at 10:45 I was back here, and half an hour later exactly the same view as the above photo looked like this...

What a difference a few hours make!

It was actually very annoying that the weather cleared through so quickly because when it was cloudy and still a bit grim, birds were passing. As soon as the big yellow thing came out passage dried up and the viewing conditions became horrendous.  In 45 mins I logged:

12 Common Scoter

7 Brent Geese

1 Balearic Shearwater (very dark bird which seemed to be lingering below a feeding flock of Gannets)

2 Arctic Skua

1 Dunlin

Where was my Little Gull? Sooty Shearwater? Rare Grebe? Eider??? See....so many possible year ticks!!

I had a couple of trips alongside the Estuary too - with the first one showing a nice (presumed) fourth-winter Yellow-legged Gull by the tram sheds...

Sorry for the poor quality pics - it was chucking down with rain!

The Yellow-legged Gull on right with two Great and one Lesser Black-backs and two Herring Gulls.

This was actually a really interesting bird (I know very few of you will agree with me!).  The head streaking and pale washed out yellow legs wouldn't be right if this was an adult Yellow-legged Gull, but the bill shows this bird isn't an adult - with a dark smudge.  Other pro-Yellow-legged Gull features that helped rule out a weird hybrid (which actually never entered my mind) were long winged appearance, small white primary mirrors, narrow white tertial crescent, mantle colour, overall structure, bill size and head shape. 

Another look along the Estuary a few hours later showed the Yellow-legged Gull again (now north of Coronation Corner) and two Brent Geese...

Can we have a goose other than Canada or Brent PLEASE!!

And now to today. Axe Cliff was my first port of call this morning, I was hoping for some good vis mig but it never really got going. Best of all was my first Ring Ouzel of the autumn, which was amongst several Blackbird, 10+ Song Thrush and a Redwing.  A few Chiffchaffs were in the bushes too, with three Stonechat and three Reed Bunting also present.    

After this, a look from the farm gate showed the Spotted Redshank still on Colyford Marsh and a stunning Marsh Harrier sat out in full view preening - nice!  

Lastly, a quick visit to Lower Bruckland Ponds showed a surprise diving duck! Was it a Pochard???......

...was it heck! Yet another Tufted Duck, you guessed it - not a year tick!

Being Left Behind...

We (not just the patch, but Devon as a whole - in fact to a certain extent the south west!) have been left behind by the rest of the UK. The east coast has seen yet another superb influx of migrants, scarcities and rarities but very few have reached us.   I thought the Lower Bruckland Yellow-browed Warblers a fortnight ago were going to be the start of a cracking spell of birding for us - but that wasn't the case.

Although I haven't had much time to go birding, I've forced myself to look along the Estuary and river valley at least once a day. And every couple of days I've given either Beer Head, Axe Cliff or the marshes a good look.  The highlight of what should be one of the best times of year has been...a Brent Goose!  Yes - that's how bad and frustrating it's been.

The cold northerly winds that closed last week shouted Whooper Swan or grey goose to me. Annoyingly the Whooper Swans decided to fly back north a little to the west of us (yes you guessed it - Dawlish Warren had three on Friday morning) and the goose wasn't a grey one, but as I've already mentioned a Brent. I thought the 90 Canada Geese would attract something but I was hoping for something a bit better.  Wildfowl are clearly on the move at the moment, a few days ago I had three Shoveler fly past at sea, and this morning a lovely juv Pintail was on Lower Bruckland Ponds.

Black-headed and Common Gull numbers are also increasing, with two Med Gulls (a first and second-winter) on Saturday morning and an adult this morning.  Waders have been trickling though with a few Ruff still about (apparently five this morning), 15 Dunlin and a lingering Greenshank.

Vis mig hasn't been spectacular but there's been some ok days with good numbers of the expected species passing over. Have had several Reed Buntings, Grey Wags and Siskins go through, and my first Redpoll of the autumn with two over Black Hole on 6th Oct.  Considering the number of Redwings in the UK I'm amazed to say I've not actually seen one!  I've heard a few going over in the night but a day time bird has so far eluded me.

Because I've seen no decent birds I've taken no photos of birds. Well that's except for a Swallow I spied this morning - I'm starting to note down any hirundines I see now as they are getting few and far between. If I didn't tell you I took this photo this morning, it could easily be a late March pic of the first returning male Swallow...

You better get going mate!

I was pleased to get the moth trap out a few times before the weather turned cooler. One of the nights isn't worth talking about, but the other - 8th Oct - certainly is!  In the trap the next morning were 69 moths of 19 species. This included plenty of immigrants, such as...

Two Vestals, only caught one before in the garden ever!

My third Clancy's Rustic

A Delicate

And my highest ever count of Dark Sword Grass, four.

And that's that. I'm afraid this long awaited blog post wasn't worth waiting for. Hopefully things will get better soon...

 

Eastern Invasion Finally Reaches The Patch

Thought I was going to have to wait a bit longer for Yellow-browed Warbler to get on my patch year list - but I was pretty confident I was going to get one at some point this autumn considering the monster influx up north a week or two back.

I basically spend all of October and Novemember every year looking for Long-tailed Tit flocks - so I was pleased to hear some as soon as I got out of the car at Lower Bruckland Ponds this afternoon. With so many leaves still on the trees at the moment it's not easy checking tit flocks, so I decided to go in under the trees and look up.  Within a few minutes I got my prize, as a Yellow-browed Warbler popped out literally a few feet in front of me!! Sweeeet.  Better still, as I was watching it, another called from just above and behind me about four or five times!  I fumbled around trying to get some pics, but soon the whole flock moved off and across the pond.  About 15 mins later I had brief and distant views of one again, and heard more calls as the tit flock disappeared south away from the ponds.  Sadly no one else connected, but Dave H heard one a few hours later. The weather was pretty lousy though.

These Yelllow-broweds are our earliest ever, by a day, and represent the eighth and ninth for the patch. The last one I saw here was on 30th Oct 2007 - the two since (both at Beer Head, one in 2010 and one in 2011) were seen only by their finders.

This is the best pic I managed of the bird I saw. Look at that stonking 'super', and you can just see a wing bar... 

You eastern beauty!

Although this photo is pretty rubbish, all the other photos looked like the below, so I'm glad it decided to turn its head...

A Yellow-broweds arse!

There was clearly a bit of a warbler influx today, an early morning sprint around the valley showed 15+ Chiffchaff, and there were at least five at Lower Bruckland Ponds. Other than this, a few Wheatears and Yellow Wags, and my first autumn Stonechat today, migrant passerines haven't exactly been abundant or surprising over the last week. It's been all about wading birds.

Last Friday, a Little Stint and a Ruff appeared on Black Hole Marsh. There's now four Ruff on Black Hole Marsh, and a cracking juv Spotted Redshank which has been around since Saturday. It was quite flighty and vocal today, although looked quite settled on Colyford Marsh scrape this afternoon.  Dunlin numbers have been pretty stable throughout with 20-30, but Bar-tailed Godwit numbers seem to be ever-increasing with an impressive 11 on the Estuary yesterday! Wildfowl numbers have also increased dramatically recently, with a juv Pintail last Thursday and five Shoveler on Monday being notable. Still hoping for a Pochard!

I have been keeping an eye on the gulls too. There's not been that many to look at sadly, but amongst them yesterday was another one of those 'presumed' Lesser Black-backedxHerring Gull hybrids...

Not quite a Yellow-legged Gull

Washed out yellow legs, short wings and legs, smallish head and bill, overall small(ish) size, head streaking, wing tip pattern and mantle colour all give aways that it's not the 'real McCoy'.

I've been disappointed by the sea, although tomorrow looks like it might be worth a look.  The best I managed was yesterday morning when easterly gull passage included my first Med for several weeks (an adult), a Common and 11 Black-heads, plus two Sandwich Terns. Birds flying west included two Teal and two Common Scoter.

That's all the birdie stuff dealt with, but before I sign off I must mention that since the last post I've added an extra year to my age. Birthday means birthday cake - and when your fiancee is a professional cake maker this is what you get...

They tasted as good as they look!

One Hundred And Eighty...

...is what my 2013 patch year list is on thanks to a text from Tim Wright this afternoon.

Glossy Ibis, Wryneck, Rosefinch, Rose-coloured Starling and virtually all species of American wading birds have been on my radar over the past week. But as they say, expect the unexpected...

Can you see it!?

A bloody Bittern!

Having a Bittern on the Axe is amazing in itself - but for one to be out like this early afternoon is just crazy!!! Only my second ever for the patch - the first one hung around for several weeks during a spell of freezing weather.  I guess with the rapid increase in breeding numbers on the Somerset Levels we should expect more of these from now on - I certainly won't be complaining!

Catching Up...

In the last blog post I spoke about the two bird highlights of last week, but I didn't have chance to blog about everything else! So here it is...

A week ago today saw my (now seemingly annual) guided bird watch around Beer Head for the East Devon branch of Devon Birds.  It was one of those days weather-wise that you didn't know what to wear, in some spots it was quite warm and still, but grey clouds overhead always suggested rain was imminent. On a couple of occasions it was more than imminent...

'The Hollow' bushes proving very useful!

There weren't loads of migrants around, but there were some.  The bushes held a couple of Whitethroat, and Blackcap, a Redstart (only seen by a couple of people) and several Chiffchaffs. On top of the headland at least five Wheatears and a Whinchat were nice to see, and the flock of 20+ Yellow Wagtails around the cattle proved very popular. Had great views of a juv Green Woodpecker too, feeding in the middle of the field - this was probably my highlight of the walk as we don't see many around here.

The next day was Caspian Gull day - but a morning seawatch showed my first Red-throated Diver of the autumn west which is certainly worth this paragraph I'd say!

Next it was Wednesday, which was Spotted Crake day! Thursday dawned and I was hoping to make it three year ticks in three days - although I had to be in Exeter for 9:30 which made that rather unlikely...

I was in Exeter to record a piece for BBC Radio Devon about the recent Lesser Yellowlegs.  Unfortunately we didn't see it as it was further down river, but I enjoyed doing it never-the-less. I think it is still on 'Listen again'. If you really want to hear it, you want Good Morning Devon on Friday 20th, and go to 23 minutes. Clips of the interview even made the half-hourly news and the whole piece was repeated towards the end of the show too!  Anyway, the actual interview was all done and dusted by 11am, so I came straight back home...

The weather  became really interesting, fairly strong southerly winds and heavy rain, and as soon as the rain stopped I headed to the sea front. I'm very pleased I did as I did indeed make it three patch year ticks in three days!  Arctic Tern was the species, there were three (two ads, one juv) lingering close in, with another two juvs west past.  After I'd seen the first three Arctic Terns, and had my first Balearic Shearwater of the watch, I sent a few texts out and was soon joined by Gav. I watched 12:40-13:50 and mustered the following (all west except the three lingering Arctic Terns):

42 Common Scoter

12 Balearic Shearwater

5 Arctic Tern

2 Sandwich Tern

5 Dunlin

1 Turnstone

Although this doesn't sound much, as we've had virtually no good seawatching this year it seemed like a bloody good seawatch! Turnstone and Arctic Tern are fairly scarce here, and Balearic's are always nice to see, Gav stayed on a bit longer and had a few more of these. Our passage of Balearic's tied in nicely with a passage off Portland that also occurred when the rain stopped, see HERE and scroll down to the 19th.

Friday came next and I fancied a walk around the marshes early morning. All was quiet until I spied an Osprey circling way down river. It disappeared around the corner towards Axe Cliff, but five minutes later  reappeared, flew all the way up river before U-turning over Black Hole Marsh and flying off south...

Not great photos - sorry! It was dull, I really should have taken a video clip

I returned home for a day of laptop work, but this was interupted by a phone call from Doug Rudge (of EDDC). Someone had phoned them with news of a dead Peregrine in Axmouth.  Soon as I heard Peregrine and dead together I knew I had to get this bird in case it was dead via sinister/illegal means.  Many thanks to the owners of Axmouth Camp Site for keeping the bird (in the freezer too!) and reporting it.  Everyone please do this when it comes to dead birds of prey.

Anyway I picked it up and although always sad to see a dead bird, I was pleased it wasn't a Peregrine. It was actually (very surprisingly!) a juv Merlin...

A stunning little bird!

A Merlin was reported from the Axe Wetlands several times last weekend, and the camp site owner said he'd seen this bird several times during the week. It was very thin so obviously couldn't catch itself any prey - maybe it left home too soon?

This morning, a look around the reserves at high tide pleasingly showed an increase in wader numbers.  Best of all were two juv Curlew Sands on Colyford Marsh with 22 Dunlin and 15 Lapwing. On Black Hole Marsh it was nice to see Redshank and Blackwits roosting again, with nine Green Sands showing there is at least some food in the mud here!

And that's me caught up. Lastly, if you're not looking forward to something coming up, just think what this Wheatear is about to do...

...fly a few thousand miles!

Caspian Gull and Spotted Crake

Won't have much birding time from now til the end of the month, so am making the most of any time I do find...

Yesterday with all that rain, and a middayish low tide, I thought the Estuary would be worth a quick look early afternoon - in the end it wasn't a 'quick' look at all!  The moment I drove over the bridge at the bottom end of the Estuary things looked promising as I could see lots of black...

Great Black-backed Gulls galore

Lots of Black-backed Gulls (whether they're Great or Lesser) is always a good sign, and is usually the case when there's strong wind and rain. They're birds that have come in from offshore to shelter from the weather, and there's always the possibility they've bought something else in with them. I thought a Yellow-legged was on the cards, but I really wasn't expecting to net Devon's first September Caspian Gull!

When the weather is as foul as it was yesterday, I tend to just go through the gulls with my bins from the car until I reach Coronation Corner, when the scope's needed to check birds to the north. It was whilst checking the second flock of gulls I'd come to when this made me jump out of the car and grab my scope...

The bird asleep behind the female Mallard

I didn't really know why this bird got me so excited so quickly with just this view, but looking at this pics it's the white head, neck and breast, with neat streaking around the rear of the neck, and the mostly dark greater coverts that contrasted with the rest of the coverts, scapulars and mantle feathers.

So the scope came out, but I didn't learn much more about the identity of this bird. I did learn a bit about its age though, and was starting to think it was probably a first-summer/second-winter bird as it just didn't look young and fresh enough to be a first-winter, and those broad white tips to the tertials weren't right for a 1cy bird.  I had to wait about five minutes before a male Mallard (the one pictured behind the bird in the above photo) walked past it and woke it up, and out popped exactly what I wanted to see...

Notice the typical Caspian-stance with a bulge at the top of the neck

Looking very cheesed off in the heavy rain!

Gav soon arrived and after some discussions (and seeing the bill well, which had lots of pale on it) we decided it was indeed a second calender year bird, still mostly in first-summer plumage.  In my mid I expected a second-calender year Casp in mid Sept to be more like a second-winter bird showing far more pale grey in the scaps and mantle, but apparently this is fine. To be honest I usually do my best to avoid first-summer large gulls. All other ages I will happily have a go at - but there is just so much variation in this age group of all the large gull species it's a nightmare. So I'm pleased this bird screamed Caspian first and foremost regardless of its age!

Other pro-Caspian features included the long tibia (which you can make out on the above photo), and the general size of the bird. It wasn't the biggest Casp I've seen, being clearly smaller than the Great Black-backed Gulls, but it was still significantly larger and heavier in the body than all the surrounding Herring Gulls. We had a brief view of its upperwing which looked spot on for Casp, as was a glimpse of a very white underwing and a very white tail with no black spots just a neat black tail bar. This is all depicted on Gav's blog as he managed a shot of it as it flew off, see HERE.

If all this gull talk is making you sleepy, hopefully this will wake you up...

Oh yes....

Half way through writing this post, I got a call from Dad saying someones got a Spotted Crake in front of the Field Studies Base on Stafford Marsh. I sent the texts out (I thought to everyone - sorry again Gav) and headed straight down there. It was Ian Hunt (a member of the Axe Estuary Ringing Group) who'd seen it, he saw it well at about midday. Thankfully at about 12:50 it did the decent thing and showed for five minutes in exactly the spot Ian had seen it. What a superb patch year tick - two in two days! And what a superb bird too - nothing like that drab almost spot-less dark blob last year, a really charismatic little thing poking around the juncus looking rare...

Craketastic!

Isn't it funny how quickly an autumn can go from being average to good....