Well I cannot be the author of a blog about the birds of the Axe Estuary area and not mention a certain Tern...
A Lesser Crested Tern has spent four days on the Exe Estuary, well today is its fifth day. A cracking rarity and not at a time of year you might expect to see one! However, on a local level there is galling foreword to its appearance on the Exe...
Monday of last week was absolutely shocking, especially in the afternoon with strong rain and heavy winds. I was stuck in work, but Mike B braved the elements and was watching the pre-roosting gulls pile in to the river valley. They were all clearly reluctant to head out to sea where they usually roost due to the shocking conditions.
At just before 4pm when it was already fairly dark, amongst a huge swirl of Black-headed Gulls over Black Hole Marsh, Mike had a few seconds glimpse of a tern sp., a large tern sp. with a large and colourful bill. I gave it some effort the following morning, looking along the Estuary and spent quite some time looking over the sea, but to no avail.
I have to be honest, I was sure it was going to turn out to be a Royal Tern if it did reappear anywhere, Mike thought it has a reddish bill which supported that not to mention the late date, however, presumably Lesser Crested it was! Obviously we cannot be absolutely certain, and the record will be a near-miss for the patch, however we all know what we have missed here, a truly incredible record. Gutting. Well done though Mike, just-reward for being out in such grim conditions!
So, what have I seen... Well lots of water in the valley yesterday, and it was good to see a bit of an increase in wintering bird numbers with more Lapwing and Wigeon around, as well as two Egyptian Geese which later became four. I found nothing of note in the gulls that were around yesterday, but they have revealed some goodies during the previous few days...
Best of all was this lovely first-winter Caspian Gull off Coronation Corner on Friday 5th, first seen by Phil about half an hour earlier further up-river...
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| Well I wanted a more classic-looking Casp - and boy did I get it! |
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| So white! |
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Such a striking secondary bar, and legs that went on forever! |
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| A better albeit less sharp image of its upperwing. Feather-perfect. |
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| It looked just as good on dry land as it was a big long-necked bird, standing as tall as the two Great Black-backed Gulls either side of this shot |
There was another bird present that caught my interest, in fact it hung around all day distracting me as its ID wasn't immediately apparent. It was a third-winter bird that was giving off Caspian-vibes at the same time as clearly not being a Caspian Gull. Having shared the photos with other, Herring x Caspian hybrid has been suggested, and seems a good suggestion to me, although I did wonder whether Lesser Black-backed was in the mix somewhere considering its overall size and structure and leg and mantle colour...
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| Quite a dark mantle and very washed out pale yellow legs |
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| The gull in the water |
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| Some open-wing action |
The other gull worthy of note from the previous week was this second-winter Yellow-legged Gull. It remained distant but was a really chunky bird...
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Right of the post, with Herring behind to compare mantle colour with and two Great Black-backs to the side to compare its size to! |
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| Hard to judge mantle colour here in the bright sunshine, but structure and head and bill shape shows well. It's the bird just to the right of the second-winter Herring Gull with the pale-tipped bill on the far left of this picture at mid-height. |
At least one Lesser Whitethroat is still present in Seaton, although I wouldn't be surprised if both were still present as it's been a bit windy to get a proper handle on them lately. I have got some nice sound clips, there are just some more photos I want to try and capture before I write a more detailed post on them. Hopefully I'll acheive this before the end of the year, but it ultimately depends on how helpful the birds prove!
