...I gave it another shot though, going up to Beer Head this morning. Looking down the under hooken, one minute the visibility would be fine, the next it would look like this...
Looking west (or trying too anyway!) from the view point
There weren't many migrants about, with not all that much going over. But it was nice to see my first two Black Redstarts of the autumn, both females/immatures. One was down in the under hooken fly catching off the top of small trees and bushes, and the other calling quite frantically from bushes between The Sheepwalk and The Dell before flying in to the caravan park.
A look along the estuary revealed the usual selection of waders; ten Blackwits, one Barwit, four Dunlin, lots of Lapwing, an Avocet... ohhhh... that's not usual! It looked like a juv, running around on the mud north of Coronation Corner. Always nice to see these beauties on our river, wish they were more frequent!
Now, time to talk about my AMAZING sighting yesterday... I was SOOOOO thrilled with this, though am still a bit bummed that I had left my camera in the car!
I'd gone to Seaton Marshes and was walking around the Borrow Pit when I noticed some splashing coming from the water's edge. On raising my bins I was stunned to see two OTTERS!
I watched them for five minutes fighting - they were so in to each other that they didn't notice me! Most of the time they would just roll over and over in the water with their bodies locked together, but now and then they would square up to each other face to face, before trying to bite the other's neck. Then the frantic rolling would continue causing the water to splash around them - at one point I even heard one of them make a short 'yelp'-like noise. The smaller of the two occasionally tried to get away, sometimes diving down under, but on a couple of occasions climbed out on the bank behind. It didn't take long for the slighter larger Otter to jump back on top of him/her though. Eventually they both submerged and disappeared....
This wasn't the last of them though, in the afternoon, Dad watched them for about half an hour 'patrolling' the Borrow Pit.
I feel so privileged to have witnessed this, and it wasn't at the crack of dawn.... but 09:15!!!
Lastly, two comments about my previous post....
I trust everyone noticed the glaring swearing mistake.... instead of replacing the 'i' with a '*', I just stuck a '*' in between the 'i' and the 't'! Wooops! Thanks Tom B : )
Secondly, I said I'd mention what I'd seen on a couple of morning sea watches last week. Well they were both pretty poor; a lone Brent Goose flew west, then east, then came in and flew up river, only to fly back south out of the river five minutes later, before finally heading off west. A single Red-breasted Merganser west was much more direct! And that's that!
Time for work....
Looking west (or trying too anyway!) from the view pointThere weren't many migrants about, with not all that much going over. But it was nice to see my first two Black Redstarts of the autumn, both females/immatures. One was down in the under hooken fly catching off the top of small trees and bushes, and the other calling quite frantically from bushes between The Sheepwalk and The Dell before flying in to the caravan park.
A look along the estuary revealed the usual selection of waders; ten Blackwits, one Barwit, four Dunlin, lots of Lapwing, an Avocet... ohhhh... that's not usual! It looked like a juv, running around on the mud north of Coronation Corner. Always nice to see these beauties on our river, wish they were more frequent!
Now, time to talk about my AMAZING sighting yesterday... I was SOOOOO thrilled with this, though am still a bit bummed that I had left my camera in the car!
I'd gone to Seaton Marshes and was walking around the Borrow Pit when I noticed some splashing coming from the water's edge. On raising my bins I was stunned to see two OTTERS!
I watched them for five minutes fighting - they were so in to each other that they didn't notice me! Most of the time they would just roll over and over in the water with their bodies locked together, but now and then they would square up to each other face to face, before trying to bite the other's neck. Then the frantic rolling would continue causing the water to splash around them - at one point I even heard one of them make a short 'yelp'-like noise. The smaller of the two occasionally tried to get away, sometimes diving down under, but on a couple of occasions climbed out on the bank behind. It didn't take long for the slighter larger Otter to jump back on top of him/her though. Eventually they both submerged and disappeared....
This wasn't the last of them though, in the afternoon, Dad watched them for about half an hour 'patrolling' the Borrow Pit.
I feel so privileged to have witnessed this, and it wasn't at the crack of dawn.... but 09:15!!!
Lastly, two comments about my previous post....
I trust everyone noticed the glaring swearing mistake.... instead of replacing the 'i' with a '*', I just stuck a '*' in between the 'i' and the 't'! Wooops! Thanks Tom B : )
Secondly, I said I'd mention what I'd seen on a couple of morning sea watches last week. Well they were both pretty poor; a lone Brent Goose flew west, then east, then came in and flew up river, only to fly back south out of the river five minutes later, before finally heading off west. A single Red-breasted Merganser west was much more direct! And that's that!
Time for work....
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