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Thursday, 24 July 2025

Black Hole Marsh

Since my last post, Black Hole Marsh continues to produce a nice turn over of wading birds.

The Curlew Sandpipers only stayed the one day, but the next day were replaced by our first juvenile Wood Sandpiper of the year found by Tim C.  By yesterday the Wood Sand count had increased to three, although my short visit there this morning failed to show any.  

Water levels are getting a bit low now so hopefully they'll be topped up shortly by the upcoming bigger tides, but there's so many wading birds still, even if none of them were Wood Sands!

Best of all this morning were two new-in juvenile Little Ringed Plovers, feeding quite close to Island hide...

Enjoying the mud

Do these out-cute juv Med Gulls? I think so!

Looking suitably elongated

Go get that bug!

 

Also present wading bird wise were Lapwing, Greenshank, Dunlin, Common Sandpipers and good numbers of Redshank and Black-tailed Godwits.  

Overhead two Goosander were a surprise, they did a loop over Black Hole Marsh before flying off up the valley.  Just managed to capture one of them on camera...

Very nearly didn't get a shot at all!
 

In the bushes alongside the entrance track a Willow Warbler, which was sporadically singing, was my first of the autumn on patch.  There's still hundreds of Sand Martins feeding low over the site, I guess not a surprise considering 400 pulli have been ringed in the Sand Martin wall this year - which is an incredible number!  Am sure most will soon be off south.

The only other birds sighting I have to mention from the last few days is of three Whimbrel frequenting the lower Estuary (although haven't seen any today).  I have been checking the gulls when I can but still no baby Yellow-legs or many more Meds for me.

Check back soon for more - I have a feeling autumn will be ramping up quite rapidly from here on in...

 

Sunday, 20 July 2025

Curlew Sandpipers

Rain overnight coupled with a fairly strong south easterly veering southerly wind, encouraged me to spend a few hours out before work this morning.

Thankfully there were more enthusiastic birders than me about and a quick scroll of my WhatsApp messages before I'd left the house informed me the sea probably wasn't worth my time (thanks James!). So straight to Black Hole Marsh it was...

Here I was really surprised to come across two absolutely stonking Curlew Sandpipers, feeding at times with, but also at times completely separate from the 11 Dunlin also on the marsh.  They remained fairly close to Tower Hide but the light was poor whilst I was there.  Am glad they stayed the day though so many others could enjoy them.

A Blackwit sandwich with Curlew Sand-bread!  Two absolute crackers!

Such a size difference between the two, so presumable female on left and male on right!  

Although we can get spring birds occasionally well into June, these are the earliest autumn birds recorded on the patch that I know of.  Looking through my records the previous earliest autumn Curlew Sand here was on 4th August, back in 2014 on Black Hole Marsh.  So these might well be the first July records? 

Top birds!  And more than enough to get me out of the summer birding doldrums
 

Another autumn first for me this morning - about a month early - was an eclipse drake Wigeon on the Estuary.  It's so early that I actually wonder if it ever left!? A female lingered well into May on Seaton Marshes but don't think I saw a male later than is expected.

Remained distant!
 

Also this morning it was nice to see my first grounded juvenile Med Gull of the autumn.  I saw my first juvenile of the autumn exactly a week ago, but it flew straight down the Estuary and out to sea.  I have not had any big numbers or decent passages of Meds yet, despite over a hundred on the Exe recently.  Hopefully we've not missed them all! 

Hello cutey!

It's been a while since I last posted about birds, but I don't really have much to fill you all in on.  The sea has remained really quiet except small numbers of Manx Shearwater, and in the river valley it's been the same selection of wading birds just in varying numbers.  

There's clearly been some hirundine migration over the last few weeks as I have seen small fast-moving groups of Swallows and Sand Martins sporadically flying over.  Also a few days ago I saw the first noticeable gathering of House Martins feeding overhead under a layer of low cloud, which looked amazing over the house!  Swifts have thinned out as to be expected, I had 50 over the house at the start of the month one morning but have seen no more than 15 on any day in the last week.  

Two Common Sands from BHM last week, included here as shows difference nicely between a young bird (near) and adult bird (far)

Black-tailed Godwits have been showing well lately

Let's hope there is more rain on the way - the two brick red beauties today proving just how quickly the wet stuff can deliver the goods!


Saturday, 12 July 2025

Garden Butterfly Surprises

This period of hot and sunny weather is doing wonders for butterfly numbers. I'm seeing excellent numbers and so many different species whenever I've been out and about.  Just brilliant.

My garden continues to attract a nice selection too, including two species I really wasn't expecting... 

The first one was most bizarre, not just because of the species it was, more because I found it fluttering around our bathroom at 10:30pm on Wednesday night!!

Yep - that is a Wood White resting on our toilet roll basket!
 

The bathroom window had been open all day, but for some reason I just didn't notice it until bed time!  I potted it and the next morning let it go in the garden.  It looked alot better floating around our front garden, plus it lingered long enough to allow me to get some more natural photos of it...

A very localised species around here, I have never seen one away from known sites

I got muddy shorts getting this shot!


Today gave the second unexpected record, with a Wall Brown flying around the back garden before resting on one of our walls.  The nearest ones I know of are on Beer Head/Axe Cliff...

Beautiful markings
 
I potted it to get some better shots, but it just wouldn't show its upperwing again!


Long may this sunny weather continue, as hopefully will these surprises!  Take care all, and stay cool...

 

Saturday, 5 July 2025

Dolphin, Mandarin and Norfolk Hawker

Didn't have much time out yesterday (Friday), but the time I did spend out and about proved eventful...

First surprise during a speculative flat-sea sea watch from Spot On, was a very playful and inquisitive Bottlenose Dolphin that I could see distantly chasing and playing with the fishing boats coming out of Beer...

It was miles away for me, but the views from Beer would have been brilliant
 

Like a trained animal!
 

The above two stills were taken from this short video, which I took through my telescope...

 


 

I was about to leave, but a final scope sweep across the bay showed a small duck flying in fast from the west.  Took me a while to work out what it was - a fem/juv Mandarin!

...not that you can tell what it is from this photo!
 

It spent about six minutes flying back and forth over the bay, at a variety of distances between virtually over the beach to a distant speck!  Eventually though, the River Axe enticed it in and it disappeared up the valley.  I naturally followed, and there is was on the Estuary where I was able to confirm it as a juvenile...

Probably only come from somewhere else in Devon, but still exciting to see a Mandarin vis migging!

That was from an hour out in the morning, but then mid-afternoon I had half an hour out at Lower Bruckland Ponds looking at dragonflies.

It was nice to see all the usual species out in fairly good numbers. The highlight though was stumbling upon a Norfolk Hawker, the third year this species has been recorded here...

Like the first one it didn't land for a photo, however unlike the first one that basically zoomed past me and disappeared, this one remained on view for the whole time I was watching it, partrolling a small terriorty.  Surprisingly I did manage this photo when it came to blows with a neighbouring Emperor...

This is the third year with a record of a single male here - surely that means they must actually be breeding!?
 

I put the moth trap out again last night but will leave that for another post.  Check back soon for more!

 

Thursday, 3 July 2025

Wood Sands and Crossbills

Am pleased to say I have some more bird news!  July hasn't half come around fast, but am glad it's here because it's always the month that you really feel autumn-migration gains some serious momentum.

Black Hole Marsh, now that we have some muddy edges, is proving a real magnet for the first returning wading birds. I just spent half an hour down there with Jess, this showed 40+ Black-tailed Godwits, 20 Redshank (including my first juvenile of the year), five Common Sandpiper, three Lapwing, three Dunlin, two Greenshank and two lovely Wood Sandpipers.

The Wood Sandpipers were quite close, but in appalling light so my photos aren't anything special...

The two adult Wood Sands with singles of Lapwing, Common Sand and Dunlin

   
Again both Wood Sands, although the darker of the two is fast asleep!

Fifty shades of Blackwits!  Some real stunners in full breeding plumage still

 

It's not just waders here, there's lots of Black-headed Gulls about including at least five juveniles, and Shelducks have clearly had a fairly reasonable breeding season with lots of grown up babies about.  

Earlier this week I was pleased to get my first vismig Crossbills of the season.  And even better, they were from my garden whilst I was emptying the moth trap.   Two flew south west over the garden, and although I didn't capture them on this video, if you turn the sound up you can hear them chupping away...

 


 

There's been a lot of gulls feeding out in the bay in recent days, so am hoping to take a closer look at them in the morning. Hopefully they lure something better into the bay.