Am pleased to report the Rose-coloured Starling is still in the area, although I haven't had chance to catch up with it again myself. It is spending most of its time (during daylight hours at least) just north of the patch in Whitford, with one report from Colyton as well. I don't think it is being looked for as much in the evenings now but am sure it is still roosting on patch within the Starling roost in the vicinity of Colyford Common, as it was for the first few days of its time here.
Tim C took several photos of it when he saw it on Colyford Common, on the evening of the day I first found it in Seaton. Tim has kindly allowed me to post his photos here, so please find below two of them...
Such a striking bird even in gloomy light!
Like chalk and cheese!
And Mike B has also let me share one of his photos, taken in Whitford last week...
(c) Mike Blaver
Thankyou Tim and Mike!
A Little Stint found this morning on Black Hole Marsh meant I had to take a slight detour to work... well you just never know when it comes to late autumn peeps! However the finder was dead right with their identification as this bird was still in mostly juvenile plumage so the 'tramlines' on its back were really noticeable - helpful in ruling anything rarer out! I only had distant views but good to see it nonetheless.
Otherwise for me it's basically been all about Black Redstarts! There are at least three lingering around the east side of Seaton, spending much of their time on the new Seaton Quay site which is right next to my work...
All three look like this, first-winter birds. Am confident this one is a male due to noticeable wing patches
There still seems to be quite a few Chiffchaff about, which gives me hope for more Yellow-broweds or something rarer. I had at least eight around Stafford Marsh a couple of mornings ago, with several still along my route to work as well. It's definitely a fairly good autumn for Goldcrest too, or better than the last few autumns at least. Redwings are now a daily occurrence mostly in small numbers, but am yet to see a Fieldfare.
Seems like the vismig season has ground to a halt, after probably the best ever autumn for Wood Pigeon passage. This lingering solid grey cloud and easterly airflow is not encouraging anything to move at all in the mornings, well not here anyway.
I couldn't get out this morning so spent a good deal of time vismigging from the back garden. For the second day in a row a clear dawn soon clouded over...
Looking east, clear sky sandwiched between thick cloud and some low river mist
Over 4,600 Wood Pigeons flew south down the valley, with 30 Chaffinch, 15 Goldfinch, 10 MeadowPipit, 10 Redwing, 6 Siskin, 5 Greenfinch, 5 Pied Wag, 2 ReedBunting, 2 Skylark,1Grey Wag andmy first Brambling of the autumn also overhead.
The Brambling flew over pre-sunrise with four Chaffinch, and am pleased to say my sound recorder (which I am yet to do a blog post about, but promise I will) picked it up. Unfortunately it also picked up my size tens on our gravel garden as I picked some chives for my egg on toast! However it is thanks to my garnishing-needs that I was outside at the right time so can't complain.
Here is the Brambling, calling soon after my stomping, along with some Chaffinch calls. There's a nice low pass by two Redwing at the end of this short sound clip too...
The Rose-coloured Starling was still about today, seen in Whitford again. This is where it seems to be spending its time during the day, although it is mostly out of view in private gardens. Still not seen it again around my house!
It felt a lot cooler this morning, and with clear blue skies when the day broke I made time for an hours vismig watch from Beer Stables at 06:50.
Basically it was all Wood Pigeons and Jackdaws again, which is great to see, but the lack of small birds is getting really concerning now. Yes I am seeing Chaffinches, other finches and Skylarks passing over during all of my recent vismig watches, but not at all in the numbers I would expect for late October. For example small birds recorded this morning were limited to just: 28 Chaffinch, 24 Goldfinch, 10 Linnet, 7 Redwing, 5 Skylark, 4 alba Wagtail, 1 Blackbird and 1 Siskin. I can only hope there are a lot more birds still to come in from Scandinavia?
I did have a very unexpected big bird come through though, on a flight path that took it directly over my head and probably over a mile in land when I lost sight of it...
My orginal thought was 'what is that!?'
It was high up as well
A Great Northern Diver! Not a species I usually have to ID from underneath here!
I recorded 17,600 Wood Pigeons by the time I left, along with 62 Stock Dove in the closer flocks and in their own little groups, with presumably many more of the latter in the distant flocks too. Flocks were passing on a broad front, but the largest flocks were just out over the sea up high. Also had 380 Jackdaws fly west.
A Wood Pigeon leading five Stock Dove
Later in the day it was nice to see a Red Kite fly high east over the town, just after 3pm. Not a regular species in any month of the autumn, so not expected today at all. Awful photo pic below...
Good binocular views confirmed it was just a Red one!
Have also heard on the local WhatsApp group that the Rose-coloured Starling roosted in the Colyford Common area again this evening (thanks Tim C) having been seen on a couple of occasions in Whitford today. Still not seen it around my house again despite looking, which makes the find feel even jammier to be honest!!
After an uneventful couple of hours on patch this morning (although the Rose-coloured Starling was seen by others at both ends of the day at Colyford Common), with today being a bonus day off I managed to convince the family on a trip to Budleigh...
To be truthful as they both love nature and Budleigh they didn't need any convincing at all!
I was keen to seen the two Snow Buntings that have been present on the beach here for a couple of weeks, although have been delaying my visit due to their popularity (as they should be mind!). I will always try and avoid the crowds if I can.
Upon arrival at the beach early afternoon there were indeed no crowds. However there were also no obvious Snow Buntings! We wandered along the lower path, but at one stage as I was looking back to see where Harry had got to, the Snow Buntings were right there practically underneath me - I must have walked right past them! They began shuffling towards me, so I sat down where I was and proceeded to have the most enjoyable half-hour with them. They spent the whole time feeding right besides me, sometimes just within a couple of feet of my feet! Thanks to Jess for this pic...
You can't actually see the birds here but they're in that weedy strip
And what fine birds they were...
They always remained together
...but would never both look the right way at the same time!
This was the paler of the two birds
And this the darker, which seemed to be slightly more confident as it would always come the closest to me out of the two of them
Whenever I see Snow Buntings I am always fascinated at the variation in plumage within the species, almost like no two ever look truly the same. And I think it is because of this that I love trying to figure out the age and sex of any Snow Buntings I come across, so that's what I tried to do!
Before I do delve deeper into these two birds, please enjoy this little video of them...
Ok, so let's look at the two birds a little closer...
And from this point on they will be known as pale bird (left) and dark bird (right)!
Sexing: Quite straightforward, or so I thought! The amount of white in the wing of both birds, visible even on the closed wing, looked vast enough to say they were males. The dark bird did the right thing and allowed me to snap his open wing, exposing all his lovely white feathers...
Except the black in the primaries, primary coverts, alula and tips of the outermost secondary or two, all white!!
The pale bird, although showing overall less white in the open wing, still appeared to show enough white to be a male for me. However some excellent photos posted on Twitter by @sharkeee after I first wrote this post have made me think again. It does show lots of white on the median and lesser coverts, as well as white on both sides of the feather shafts of the inner most one or two primary coverts, the rest of which are all dark (ok for a first-winter male) but the overall amount of white in the primaries is more what you would expect with a female. Hopefully I will get permission to use @sharkeee's photos here and update this post further. So pale bird is a slight question mark for me, although am still thinking male.
Subspecies: I am confident that both these birds are P. n. insulae. This is the race of Snow Bunting that breeds in Iceland (and the small population that breed in Scotland). P. n. nivalis is the other main race, breeding across Greenland and Arctic Europe and North America. One of the main differences is that males of insulae have complete black rumps in breeding plumage. This can be hard to spot in autumn, but underneath the beautiful rusty coloured rump feathers of both these birds were hints of black...
The rusty colour will wear off as the winter progresses exposing the black feather centres
Ageing: This is where what little confidence I had ends. Although I am fairly certain the pale bird is a first-winter. It has nice pointy and worn-tipped tail feathers, and the outer tertial is fairly worn and doesn't look all that rounded to me...
The best photo I got of the pale birds flight and tail feathers
The one I really couldn't decide upon is the dark bird, I kept flipping between adult (or at least 2cy in age) and first-winter, but I think I have landed on an answer...
I really felt like this bird shows more rounded tail and tertials, as well as less and even wear on all feather tips. I also cannot see any moult limit anywhere
The main reason I thought the dark bird might have been an adult was the white and black in the wing. If you scroll back up and look at the upperwing shot again there is just so much clean white, with all the black bits clearly defined and solidly black. I would expect more diffuse black and less clear white if this was a younger bird maybe? Or so I thought... The black tips to the outer most secondaries, and thick black primary covert tips (both visible on my open wing shot) probably shouldn't be there if it were an adult bird, these should be pure white, so am going to land on first-winter for this one too.
So no, I haven't worked them out at all really, especially that pale bird. But it was great fun trying, and what a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon watching, studying and photographing them, and then mulling over them in my head for the rest of the day.
To finish the post, here's some useful links when it comes to the finer details of Snow Buntings:
Well that was a bit of a shock to the system! I had taken about four steps from my front garden on my walk to work this morning when my brain couldn't quite work out with a naked eye view what the strangely pale lump was on a neighbours roof...
Thankfully my binoculars were around my neck.... it was a bloody juv/first-winter Rose-coloured Starling! All on its tod, just a Wood Pigeon perched on the other end of the roof.
After about ten seconds of excellent front and then back views, and of course just as I was lowering my rucksack off my back to retrieve my camera, it dropped off the back side of the roof and disappeared from view, and I had no way of knowing how far it went! I sent messages out and spent the next hour walking around the estate, soon joined by a few of the local birders. Things were not looking good, but then at 08:50 it flew low over mine and Clive's head trailing a Common Starling, looking just as ridiculously pale as it did when it was sat on the roof.
Not sure how much more time was given to it by other birders after my departure, and I was at work for the rest of the day, but it wasn't reported again until almost 4pm when Phil A and Tim C had on Colyford Common, which is where it then roosted with around 2,000 Starling at 5pm. I do hope it remains in the area and settles as I would love to get a photo or two of it myself. I have got Jess and Harry on high alert as we have fat balls hanging in our front garden - it was so close to be added to my house list but hopefully there is still chance!
This is our first Rose-coloured Starling on patch since the pair of stunning adults in Eyewell Green in June 2020, before that you'd have to go back to June 2012 when we all missed an adult that spent a few days in Colyford. I think this is the first juvenile/first-winter ever recorded here, which is quite surprising given the large autumn Starling flocks we get on the marshes.
Late this afternoon, a large immature gull had me scratching my head for a bit on the lower Axe Estuary, until it flashed its upperwing which looked classic Yellow-legged Gull... and that's because it was a Yellow-legged Gull!
Previously all the 2cy Yellow-legged Gulls I have seen here during the last few months of the year have been clear cut second-winters, but this bird was still in its moult from first-summer plumage to second-winter plumage, hence why it didn't look as clean as your regular second-winters. Plumage aside, size and structure spot on as it was a big meaty bird..
All that grey coming through, clearly darker than the Herring Gulls. Very pale headed although still retaining a slight dark eye smudge
Huge bird! Big square head, thick bill, long legs - a bit of a chunk really!
Almost a Casp-like border between pale head and nape. Dusky eye smudge and head shape very un-Casp-like though!
Typical immature Yellow-legged Gull tail pattern with thick black tail band
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 throughtoo, 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!
This morning I stood in the same spot at Lower Bruckland Ponds for about twenty five minutes. For most of this time rain of varying intensity fell from the sky, and the trees and bushes around me were all swaying in the persistent south easterly wind.
I first stopped here as I could hear the soft contact calls of a small group of Long-tailed Tits above me, and then I was soon engulfed by these delightful little birds as it looked like three separate flocks came together at the very point I was stood.
Viewing conditions were difficult. The birds were often really elusive in the swaying trees, trying to get as much shelter as they could whilst foraging for food. The constant downfall of autumn leaves also didn't help, time and time again a movement that caught the corner of my eyes proved to be yet another golden leaf dropping from height.
Goldcrests and Chiffchaffs were plentiful among the tits, and a brief Coal Tit displayed what looked like a peaked rear crown and a not-that-olive mantle, but it quickly disappeared. There were small birds everywhere, and I cannot describe the buzz and excitement this brought about within me. Every new movement I spotted, which wasn't a leaf, just felt like it could so easily have been a warbler with a wingbar or better.
At the same time that I was searching through this monster tit flock, there were near constant flocks of Redwings flying over east/south east, seeping repeatedly as they swept low over the tree tops. I counted 270 birds in all, with the biggest single flock being of 70 birds. By far my biggest movement of the autumn so far.
Of course birding on the Axe patch is nothing like birding the migration hotspots of the east coasts, or the islands dotted around our little isle. But it was really quite lovely to be reminded that the joy of autumn birding and the anticipation and excitement it brings can be as real here as anywhere.
Birding is great. Autumn birding is even better.
Now back to patch basics. Bridge Marsh showed six Gadwall, a pair of Shoveler and two Cattle Egrets (the first time I have seen any this week so good to know they are still around). And on the Estuary a Greenshank and Ruff remain, as well as my first Med Gull for a while, a rather plain-faced first-winter. Despite several scans of the huge numbers of loafing large gulls there was nothing of note among them. Away from Lower Bruckland Ponds I saw and heard several more Goldcrests and Chiffchaffs this morning, it is proving a good autumn for both these species here.
Rewinding back to Wednesday... it was a frustrating morning. My walk to work was under a thin veil of valley fog, and I could read on my phone that above this many many thousands of Wood Pigeons were flying over, as well as plenty of other birds. It started to clear as I got to work so did at least see about 1,000 Wood Pigeons fly west, as well as what will probably prove to be my last Swallow of the year. But I know I missed out on so much more.
Wood Pigeons up high
Yesterday there was no fog. And although clearly not the same quanitity of Wood Pigeons were moving as the previous morning, it was still a thrill to watch. There were several big flocks taking the usual line, high above the coast heading west, but most of the birds were coming south down the Axe valley, unusally low, then turning west to join the usual line. I had several Siskin and Skylark over too but I couldn't give it the time it deserved.
That's more like it, migrating Wood Pigeons with a blue sky background
Thursday I also enjoyed a late lunchtime walk from work and was pleased to see the single Black Redstart of Monday was joined by two more, or indeed been replaced by three more! Whatever, there were three, two along Shearwater Way and one at Axe Yacht Club. All first-winters with one clearly a male.
One of the many things I really enjoy about where I work is the location of it. I have seen many good birds within a short walk of my office, but sometimes I don't even need to leave my desk...
Taken with my phone through a very dirty window!
Really excited for the next few weeks. Hawfinches seem to be passing through mainly the east of the country in good numbers, and there are still plenty of rarities turning up with more and more being found in the south west now.
I will be trying my hardest to keep the autumn magic alive that is for sure...
