A Flavour of August

As can be guessed by my subdued social media and blogging presence of late, it's been a busy few weeks! August is one of my favourite birding months of the year, so with a window of opportunity to get out towards the end of the month, I took it...

The birders who've been getting out to Beer Head this month have been well rewarded, with good numbers of common migrants (including a few Pied Flies) and a bonus Wryneck found by Bun on Wednesday 22nd.  I knew Beer Head would be busy with birders on Saturday morning, and following a glimpse of some decent vis mig during a dog walk on the edge of Colyton on Friday morning (five Tree Pipits and six Yellow Wags flew west in a ten minute period), and the fact Saturday morning saw a cloud-less dawn, Axe Cliff lured me...

The view over Seaton from Axe Cliff

I was up here 06:00-08:15 and saw; 

44 Yellow Wagtail (all west, including two groups of ten)

7 Tree Pipit (all singles, west)

1 Wheatear

1 Redstart (a cracking male)

3 Whitethroat

5 Willow Warbler

So not loads of birds by a long way, but it filled me with so much joy. The joy of autumn birding.

After this I headed down to Black Hole Marsh, another venue that has done well this month, although unlike Beer Head hasn't offered any real patch scarcities. The second Spotted Redshank of the month (with a third found today!) had been found the day before, and showed well around the Island Hide whilst I was there. Exceptionally well...

As you can see it's a juvenile - and an incredibly fresh one at that! I don't think I've ever seen one so young, rewind just a few weeks and it was probably stumbling around a damp Arctic taiga landscape peeping at its mother for food!  Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

Also on view were a couple of juvenile Little Ringed Plovers, c25 Dunlin, a Green Sand and a Greenshank.

Won't keep you waiting as long for the next blog post I promise!