A Foray to the Exe

Having seen the Bowling Green Marsh Yellow-browed Warbler last week, I knew how ideal it would be for Dad to see. So yesterday after a hospital appointment, I took him out for his first trip to the Exe since his stroke in October last year, a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon.  The Brent Geese must have heard he was visiting as they treated us to some superb fly pasts - probably about 6-700 birds in total...

The Yellow-browed performed equally well, with some exceptionally close view of it feeding alongside the road right down in the stinging nettles.  The very first view we had of it was pretty special too, as it flew low down the middle of the road right past us.  In this single flight the Yellow-browed went from bushes near the entrance of Goosemoor to roughly 80m the other side of the Bowling Green hide - presumably taking it from the end of its feeding circuit back to the beginning?  

Excuse the very frustratingly positioned vegetation in the below photo, which looks horribly like fishing wire!...

There's been plenty of reports of this bird having a dodgy right eye, it was pretty much fully closed whilst we were watching it.  Sadly it evidently now has problems with its left eye too, being half-closed. Poor guy, I don't rate his chances much :-(

I'm almost embarrassed to say that this trip out saw my first visit to Goosemoor.  A lovely reserve with several excellent vantage points...

And it's clearly a great place for Greenshank...

A truly wonderful and very very special afternoon out for me.  Great to be able to start repaying Dad for all the weekends he took me out birding when I was in my teens...

Exe Estuary Cruise and EDG Review

On Saturday just gone, I was thrilled to join my Dad on a Stuart Line Cruise up the Exe Estuary, which set off from Exmouth at 1pm. Dad has led some of these winter trips for many years now, and I always like to try and get on at least one a winter.

With no telescopes on the Stuart Line Cruise, it's a great place to test out binoculars and get a true feel of their capabilities and limits. So no better place than this to try out the Nikon EDG's that were sent to me to try out earlier in the week...

The light remained nice and flat throughout the three hour cruise, there was no wind and plenty of birds - a fantastic trip! 

On the lower part of the Estuary, hundreds and hundreds of Brent Geese proved a spectacle, along with good numbers of Shag, and in the deeper water here two Great Northern and a surprise Red-throated Diver (rare in the river), the resident Slavonian Grebe, only a few Red-breasted Mergansers (still lots of these to arrive) and a very distant Long-tailed Duck, which was way way off to the east north of Mudbanks.

Red-throated Diver

Slavonian Grebe with a typical Exe back drop

The ultra distant Long-tailed Duck, only identifiable thanks to the amazing zoom on the P900!

As we travelled up the Estuary towards Topsham, the usual change in species occurred with Avocet, Dunlin, Curlew and Black-tailed Godwit becoming the most numerous species. A flock of c230 Golden Plover roosting on the mud were nice to see, along with good numbers of Lapwing among the usual smaller numbers of Grey Plover, Greenshank, Bar-tailed Godwit, Knot and a lovely little flock of 30 Sanderling.   There were also impressive numbers of wildfowl present, mostly around the Clyst area with thousands of Wigeon and probably well over a hundred Pintail. Three Kingfishers pleased the punters on the boat, as always.

It was nice to see three Common Seal on the trip, including a small youngster. Two allowed their photographs to be taken...

And what about the binoculars? Well I was really impressed. Superb image quality and light levels, which I have come to expect with Nikon products now. They were a really comfortable pair of binoculars too with a thick neck strap, and for me they're the perfect size allowing a good solid grip to keep them steady, an important attribute in optics when boat birding.  They allowed me to pick out all three divers on the trip, and I doubt I would have spotted the Long-tailed Duck at all had I been using other optics. It honestly was a dot, but through the EDG's it did at least look like a Long-tailed Duck-shaped dot! It's these small differences that can sometimes make all the difference when birding.

Cold Weather At Last!

Still no white-wingers, but a bit of cold weather movement has fired me up a little...

This afternoon on patch, a nice flock of 12 Gadwall were floating about north of Coronation Corner (eight drakes), and on Bridge Marsh were these seven Golden Plover...

Can you spot them all?

Also on Bridge Marsh, 220 Wigeon. Back to the Estuary, and amongst the gulls were eight Med Gulls; seven adults (one near summer plumaged and one white-ringed) and a single second-winter bird.

Earlier in the day, I was in Exeter so popped down to Dawlish Warren to have a look at the wintering Surf Scoter. Despite the choppy conditions I soon picked it up off Langstone Rock, along with a single Slav Grebe.

I was feeling lazy, so tried to scope the American Wigeon from Cockwood. Epic fail! The Wigeon were miles away, and they were all a hazy blur! A bit of a surprise here though were two Egyptian Geese on the water's edge, near to Railway Saltmarsh. However they obviously didn't like it much, as they soon took off and flew up river. Bloody typical that I left my Lumix in the car - they flew right past me (half way between me and the wreck).

So, let's hope this cold spell continues to produce...a drake Ring-necked Duck or two would be nice :-)

Exe Estuary Boat Trip

I was hoping to write this post yesterday at the latest, but this is the first chance I've had. I should really be out looking for a Sand Martin - but can't face the disappointment of not seeing one - some would say "how pessimistic!", I say "just being realistic!"

Before I write about Saturday afternoon, the night before was the first night of the Garden Moth Scheme. I woke up to a car with a layer of ice over the windows, and a sharp frost on the lawns, so I was somewhat surprised to find five moths in the trap! Four were Common Quakers, but the fifth was another new species for the garden...

March Moth; the female is flight-less

Saturday afternoon, as the post title suggests I joined my old man who provides the commentary for the Stuart Line bird watching cruises on the River Exe. The skies were grey, but it wasn't as cold as expected and I had a thouroughly enjoyable three plus hours on board the Tudor Rose.

I'll use photos to tell the tale of the trip....

The 'Tudor Rose' is the smaller boat used by Stuart Line, they usually use the larger 'Pride of Exmouth' for these trips. She is currently undergoing a service on the edge of the Estuary...


The Tudor Rose is still a lovely vessel though...


With a very comfortable and warm downstairs...


Complete with a very complete bar...


As I was with the 'expert guide', we boarded the boat first. Here are all the punters excitably waiting to join us...


Then they were allowed on, full house...


We set sail from Exmouth Docks at 13:30, and headed south to the river mouth...


And we carried on going south along Exmouth sea front...


The tide was crazily low, so we spent a fair bit of time down the lower part of the Estuary/the sea! There were vast sand bars and mussle beds exposed becuase of the low tide, this is looking NORTH towards Dawlish Warren. Yes, this could normally be described as 'the sea'...


And whilst out here, we had our first glimpse of the 'rivals'. The RSPB also do these Exe Estuary cruises, and funnily enough Saturday's one was being lead by my mate Ed...


We turned around, then began heading back north, passing Dawlish Warren sea front...


Then Warren Point...


And along past the Bite and Dawlish Warren hide...


Here we started noticing waders, with flocks of Bar-tailed Godwits on the shore along with a few Turnstone and Sanderling, and on the water good numbers of Shags...


Heading up past Starcross and Cockwood, about six Greenshank fed on the edge of the Estuary, and I picked out the wintering Long-tailed Duck with a couple of female Goldeneye though the trio remained very distant. We then passed the very grand Powderham Castle...


A decent flock of Brent Geese were here on the water's edge, though soon flew over towards Exminster Marshes...


As we approached Turf Lock...


A nice Slav Grebe popped up next to the boat...


And gave the opportunity of taking a photo of a Slav Grebe and a Curlew in the same frame, something I have always dreamed of!!?!...


When we got to the area where the Clyst Estuary flows into the Exe...


A cracking female Scaup offered good views...


Red-breasted Merganers were common throughout the trip, so had to take at least one photo of some...


It was from here that we started seeing really good numbers of waders, including plenty of 'the bird' many people come on this boat to see...


Grey Plovers, Dunlin, and Black-tailed Godwit were the most numerous waders up here, though surprisingly few Knot. A large flock of Blackwits were feeding in an area of cut reeds...


We got to Topsham, where the turn around point is...


Then headed back down river, and docked back in at Exmouth at 16:50. A very enjoyable trip, it was great to see so many places I've been birding before from a different perspective!

Well I hope this post hasn't bored you too much, and maybe it has inspired you to try this trip out for yourself. If you do STILL need convincing though, I have four words that just may do just that... home made minestrone soup! :-)