Sunny Interludes

Although 2025 will be remembered for its sunshine, warmth and lack of rain, October and November have done their best to counterbalance this.   In what has been a very grey and windy month, last Saturday (8th) was a cracker of day, with a light westerly wind and plenty of clear skies at dawn, so I headed up to Axe Cliff where I met James Mc...

We spent a couple of hours mostly watching the visible migration, which in the case of passerines seemed to be mostly happening inland of us due to the lack of wind so numbers weren't as high as expected.  However the watch still have plenty of oddities and when it came to Wood Pigeons - what a spectacle!

07:00 - 09:00 produced (west unless stated):  4 Pintail (over south), 1 Golden Plover, 1 Dunlin, 1 Green Woodpecker (heard calling from Golf Course), 30,000+ Wood Pigeon, 100+ Stock Dove, 1 Mistle Thrush, 5 Redwing, 3 Song Thrush, 450+ Starling, 45 Skylark, 1 Swallow (U-turned back east), 50+ Meadow Pipit, 4 alba Wagtail, 1 Grey Wagtail, 90 Linnet, 30 Goldfinch, 100+ Chaffinch, 3 Brambling, 8 Redpoll, 3 Siskin, 1 Reed Bunting and 1 Cirl Bunting (female briefly perched up then west).

So although no scarcities or rarities there were still plenty of surprises.  The Pintail appeared from nowhere right above our heads and flew straight out to sea.  The Swallow was the first one I've seen for probably a month as they cleared out of here really quick this year, even though before that they and House Martins were about in excellent numbers.  Dunlin was a vismig first for me at Axe Cliff (like the Pintail!) and Mistle Thrush isn't all that frequent up here at all, with the Green Woodpecker being a site first for both James and I, although there's nothing to suggest this was not a resident bird from the village.

The Cirl Bunting was another nice highlight, being the first one I have seen up here since my first one for the patch back in April 2024, which was a lovely singing male.  I heard it calling a few times before picking it up hunkered down on the top of a small bramble hedge. The light was awful but it looked to be a well-marked female...

Presumably the same bird Gav saw up here the previous week

 

As I hinted above, the Wood Pigeon passage was absolutely incredible.  They started off mostly low and following the cliff, with many flocks unusually coming from the north east of us, but then the passage moved a little offshore and gained height.  

The size of some of the wispy snake-like lines of Pigeons were almost too large to comprehend and certainly not something that could be captured by a camera, but I always try... 

Just a few in this shot!

The lower snake of birds is almost too distant to make out in this photo, but look closely and you'll see them

Such a sight to behold

A tiny flock, but I liked the light behind these

A small part of a large flock passing one of the Golf Course flags

They were still moving in good numbers when we left, so it was no surprise that Dan over at Sidmouth had over 40k birds by the time he ended his watch much later in the morning.

Today began with another very pleasant morning, following some absolutely atrocious weather-days.  I spent the first part of the morning aimlessly and randomly walking around Seaton looking skywards hoping for a swift, seeing as the previous evening there were singles in Sidmouth and Budleigh, but no such luck.  Strangely all the Wood Pigeon flocks I saw were flying east (no more than 2,000 birds), but all the Skylarks, Meadow Pipits and Chaffinches I saw were flying west as expected.  

My highlight of the morning was a lovely young male Marsh Harrier that flew in from the north over town, then headed off west...

Novel to see it from Aldi carpark!

 

Back to rain tomorrow, well now in fact as it is lashing down outside.  Storm Claudia is passing by - it's going to be a wet one folks!