Quick Update and Icelandic Blackwits

Only time for a short update. The last few and the next few days have been and will be a bit hectic for a variety of reasons. I have managed a bit of time out though which I'll summarise here...

A morning wander around Black Hole Marsh last Friday showed the bushes were the busiest they've been so far this autumn. The highlight was a cracking juv Lesser Whitethroat along the track to the Tower Hide, but the ten Willow Warblers were just as exciting to see...

Autumn Willow Warbler - hope I get to ring some soon!

The marsh itself revealed a Greenshank, c18 Dunlin and two Cattle Egrets.

Saturday gave me less than above, although three Green Sands showed well.  In the afternoon I saw my first settled Yellow Wagtail of the autumn (but my third of the season) on Seaton Marshes.

Green Sandpiper

And that's about all the bird news from me, although there has been a few other bits and bobs about. The six Goosander are still around, as are at least two Cattle Egret. And this afternoon Dad had a juv Little Ringed Plover on Black Hole which was new in.

Lastly I have been showing my (annual) love for juvenile Black-tailed Godwits on Twitter over the past few days. I saw my first on Wednesday 2nd which showed really well in front of Island Hide...

Juvenile Icelandic Black-tailed Godwit

This dull photo doesn't really do it justice. They are the most beautiful colour, with soft yet crisp plumage and amazing patterning on their scapulars and tertials.   Despite the gloomy weather, a nearby adult meant I was able to take a nice adult vs juv comparison shot...

Moulting adult Icelandic Black-tailed Godwit (left), juvenile Icelandic Black-tailed Godwit (right).

There are so many differences visible and I would happily go through them all...but that would be boring so I won't. All I will say is just look at how different they appear, the adult is a tatty worn looking bird, whereas the juvenile is so so fresh - you can just tell all those feathers are new.  Such smart birds.

More Waders

Well my predictions in my last post are hardly encouraging me to buy a lottery ticket because they were just so predictable, but half an hour down Black Hole Marsh this afternoon showed my first Little Ringed Plover of the autumn (an adult found by Ian Mc an hour earlier) and a Green Sandpiper.  Plenty more Common Sands too, and even more mud...

Clearly the arrival of all this mud has helped with the increase in wader and gull numbers, but late June/early July often sees a variety of wading birds pass through here. It's easy to forget exact dates so a quick look back through my blog and notes shows we've had Grey Plover, Barwit (and ofcourse Blackwit), Greenshank, LRP, Wood Sand and even Curlew Sandpiper and Little Stint in late June.  Some probably being late spring migrants but most will be early autumn returners, they don't hang about on their breeding grounds if they don't need to.

Basically it's always worth checking muddy edges whatever the month, especially considering the fact the big one often travels alone...

Beer Head Is Calling...

....and loudly!

Many of the usual migration hot spots have already had some decent passage this 'autumn', so this morning I nipped up Beer Head with some tools to make sure the net rides were cleared and ready for some autumn ringing.  I should have done that last week though and taken my nets up this morning, as flitting around my net rides were half-a-dozen Willow Warblers and this Redstart...

Hopefully it'll hang around for a few days...

I've forgotten how good Beer Head is for butterflies, lots of lovely long grass about to attract them.  Saw my first Clouded Yellow of the year (a nice male) and several Marbled Whites in this short visit...

Autumn Starts Early

Between bird surveying, and having to be home for the Honey Monster, I squeezed in an early morning visit to Black Hole Marsh today.

Here there were several signs of the autumn migration having moved up a notch, with our first juvenile Little Ringed Plover of the year near the far viewing platform. 

Don't see many in June, July is when they tend to start moving through

A summer plumaged Black-tailed Godwit, three Common Sandpipers and six Teal were also on show.

Local breeding birds were present in good numbers too, both in the bushes and on the lagoon. Shelduck really seem to have had a good breeding season, and both Oystercatcher broods are doing well.

Great little birds

Hopefully the good breeding season means we are in for a good autumn...

Monster Monday, Tick Tuesday and a Wasted Wednesday

Monday was something else - birding from my back door felt like birding on the east coast!

Annoyingly I had to work for a few hours Monday morning, but on my return home, looking out from the kitchen I was astounded by the numbers of thrushes.  The weather was dreadful, with very poor visibility, but this made it.  Large flocks of Redwings were dropping out the sky, landing on nearby trees for a few minutes, then flying off again. Flock after flock after flock. Other flocks were flying over much higher with out stopping, and only visible for a few seconds as they came under the low cloud. I saw about 500 Redwing in less than half hour, along with at least ten Fieldfare - my first of the autumn.  

If this wasn't enough, a Black Redstart appeared on a house roof just down the road from our back garden. This is my second one from the garden, but my first anywhere on patch this autumn. I watched it for about ten minutes feeding, before it dropped down into a back garden and out of view.  

What exciting birding!! And whilst drinking tea in a warm and dry kitchen! :-) Really reminded me of my Spurn days, when I could stand in the door way of 'Dun Birding' and watch migration in action.

Late morning I popped out for a look along the Estuary but learnt of the Little Gull movement at Portland - a species I still need for the patch year list! I went straight to the sea front and spent most of the rest of the day sea watching. I watched 11:25 - 13:05 and 14:00 - 15:10, and unbelievably saw NO Little Gulls. Portland witnessed a record breaking passage with 1500 of these beautiful small gulls passing the Bill and Chesil Cove, and Seaton Bay had none. As every minute passed the wind dropped and weather improved, which I think was our downfall - I reckon they were just too far out by the time they'd reached us. If I had started seawatching at 8am though, I think it would have been a different story. Or maybe if I'd gone to Branscombe.

Forgetting about Little Gulls, it was a surprisingly productive sea watch. The conditions during the night before must have been perfect as the conditions during the day certainly weren't! This is what went into my notebook from the two watches:

2 Brent Geese
20 Wigeon (hard to tell proper passage though as lots of birds from the valley were on the sea)
32 Teal (same as above!)
1 Shoveler (fem - may have come from the Estuary)
3 Pintail (eclipse drake and 2 fem west with Wigeon)
c100 Common Scoter (flocks flying both ways so hard to count, 60 biggest flock)
2 Velvet Scoter (two flew west in a flock of 24 Common Scoter)
1 Red-breasted Merganser (fem west)
2 Red-throated Diver 
2 Balearic Shearwater (flew west together)
3 Mediterranean Gull (flew west together; ad, 2nd winter and 1st winter)
c30 Kittiwake (no obvious passage, just birds feeding, plus a juv out of the Estuary)
1 Pomarine Skua (juv flew east, but appeared to drop down on sea)
2 Sanderling (both singles close west)
45 Dunlin
70 small waders sp. (presumably Dunlin, a 40 and a 30, but too distant - couldn't eliminate White-rumped Sandpipers)
5 Curlew
1 Bar-tailed Godwit

So as you can see, not a  bad haul for here. I was disappointed not to get a stand out bird - although I may well have fluffed a couple. A Common Scoter flock flew in to the bay and they were all just Common Scoters, but when I saw them again several minutes later flying out of the bay they had two other ducks with them - not Scoters. They looked like aythya's, and one had grey on the mantle. I couldn't see any wing bars (but they were mega distant) so am hoping they were 'just' a pair of Pochard and not the gripping blocker Phil has on his patch list...

I finished the day with a look up the river valley. Two more Med Gulls were the best, although the Starling roost was nice to watch. We've had up to 4,000 roosting in the valley for at least a week or so...

And here's a short video..

Tuesday dawned, and despite the fine conditions, I just had to look at the sea again. This time I gave Branscombe a go. I wasn't expecting it to be anything like Monday, but I did manage something I hadn't the previous day - a patch year tick!!  My totals were:

4 Brent Goose

2 Pintail (flew west)

8 Common Scoter

1 Black-throated Diver (flew west)

1 Red-throated Diver (flew west)

70 Kittiwake (west)

30+ auk sp.

So a pretty underwhelming year tick yes - and you could say an over due one too, but I think 'real' Black-throated Divers are actually pretty rare down here in Devon. It's taken me 11 and a half months and about 125 divers to see one this year!

My overwhelming thought of Wednesday was of disappointment. With the first frost of the autumn and bright blue skies I just had to go up to Axe Cliff for some vis mig action...

Sadly the vis mig never really got going.  I was hoping for a strong Wood Pigeon migration, but in the end saw less than a thousand. They were going in all directions too, probably due to the lack of wind.  Singles of Brambling, Reed Bunting and four Lesser Redpoll were the best of the little over head migration, with another five Reed Buntings on the deck amogst 10+ Yellowhammers and c80 Linnets.

And now we're on Thursday, but I've not had chance to go birding today. Hopefully I'll go for a wander somewhere tomorrow as the weather looks like it's going to be nice.

Beer Head Back On The Birding Agenda

After several days of blustery and wet conditions, Tuesday was calm and dry so I thought I'd give Beer Head a try for autumn migrants. It was a bit of a long shot really as sites like Portland and Dungeness hadn't reported much in the way autumn migrants yet.

As ever, and in keeping with previous 'first visit of the season to Beer Head posts' - here's a scenery shot...

Notice the mist in the river valley

Nice to see a new visitor board at the entrance too. For some reason they've not labelled the prime migrant spots though...

I just wish people would read the 'Please keep your dog on a lead' bit!!

Bird wise it certainly was a worthwhile visit - although no variety, totals of 28 Willow Warblers and two Wheatear certainly made it feel 'autumnal'...

This is the closest this Wheatear would allow me!

Every year when I see the first autumn Wheatears they always look small - and I suppose that's because the last Wheatears I see proir to this are large Greenland-type jobs in late spring.

I gave Beer Head another try today, it was much quieter with just one Wheatear and eight Willow Warblers. I did have a Beer Head tick though in the form of a juv Green Woodpecker near The Summit bushes. They do breed half a mile in land but I've never seen one here before.

A little later in the day I had a lovely flock of 17 Crossbill in Morganhayes Woods. They were clearly hanging around as they were moving backwards and forwards between tree-tops, so I'll have to keep my eye on them in case a Two-barred joins them. Now that would be nice...  

After this, a quick look at Lower Bruckland Ponds showed an aytha in with the moulting Mallards. Sadly not a Scaup or a Pochard...

...a lady Tufted Duck

My daily Black Hole Marsh vist was later than usual today, I didn't get here until early afternoon.  The wader situation appaeared much the same as the previous few days. A single juv Ruff remains, there's up to 34 Black-tailed Godwits (including two Axe Estuary colour-ringed birds) and several Green and Common Sands dotted about.  There was a newbie in with the Dunlin (numbering 40) and Ringed Plover (numbering 22) though - this lovely Sanderling...

Sanderling surronded by Ringed Plover, Dunlin and a Common Sandpiper

Have to say it wasn't feeding like a Sanderling at all, it was probing just like a Dunlin!

To complete this post, an update on the colour-ringed juv Kittiwake at Black Hole Marsh on Monday.  Thanks only to Phil's quick camera work we were able to make out the combination of colour-rings, and I've already had a response...

The bird was ringed at the Pointe du Raz colony (Plogoff, Finistère, Bretagne, France), which is pretty much the most western point of France. It was last seen in the colony here on 27th July.  Thanks to Phil and Jean-Yves Monnat.