Little Ringed Plover

There was a fine end to this fine day, with our first Little Ringed Plover of the spring gracing Bridge Marsh...

The distance didn't make it any less of a delight to see!  Still present at dusk.

Busy Bridge Marsh

The last few days have seen excellent numbers of wildfowl and waders feeding on Bridge Marsh, well over a thousand birds. My best counts have been 650 Lapwing, 85 Curlew, 79 Black-tailed Godwit, 290 Wigeon and 160 Teal. Really superb birding and thoroughly enjoyable, just a pity I've not been about to pull a rare out of the mix. Well that's apart from the wintering Glossy Ibis, which hasn't always proved easy to catch up with since its arrival. He/she joined the masses of birds on Bridge Marsh this morning...

Earlier in the day it was nice to finally catch up with the Seaton Hole male Black Redstart, which was actually on the houses near where the cars park at the top of the slope and not down on the beach.  A brief look out to sea showed it to be fairly quiet, although a lone Brent Goose flew west.  

To finish, another sunset shot I'm afraid, taken this evening from Seaton Beach. The tip of Beer Head looked to be glowing thanks to the angle we were viewing from...

Ducktastic

Blimey have we had some rain in the last 48 hours!  And that's lead to some pretty serious flooding in the river valley this afternoon...

Bridge Marsh, water as far as the eye can see!

Looking north from the road bridge over the Axe on the A3052

Looking south from the same bridge

The road ALWAYS floods here - that's one brave moped driver!

The flood from Axmouth

Thankfully this afternoon the rain had stopped, but this morning when it was lashing down I did try to go birding.  It was a struggle, but Bridge Marsh (pre-mega flood) was absolutely heaving with ducks so it was well worth getting wet.  This is how Bridge Marsh looked at 9am (compare with my first photo of this post which was taken at about 14:30)...

Great for birds, but not for birding!

Between cleaning my optics and warming myself up with my car heater, the flood water here showed 400+ Teal, 300 Wigeon, 70 Canada Geese, four Pintail (two pairs), four Gadwall (two pairs, first seen yesterday by PA) and a Dark-bellied Brent Goose (the lingering bird). That's my highest counts for four species of duck so far this autumn/winter, in fact it's the biggest flock of Pintail I've seen on the Axe for many years. This afternoon the wildfowl had spread out with the increase in flood water.

Also this morning I finally managed my first Redpoll of the autumn (about two months late!).  I was lucky to time my ten second walk from my front door to my car perfectly as one flew over calling. It really has been a poor autumn for all the finch species, Siskin and Redpoll especially.

Water Pipits

Just a quick one.  Yesterday whilst stood at one of the Bridge Marsh gateways, three Water Pipits dropped in not too far away. Was just a pity the light was so awful...

Although a crap photo, just look how white the underparts are which is typical for Water Pipit

There's just about two in this photo

I'm afraid I've got a bit more about Scandinavian Herring Gulls now.  Many thanks to my mate Brett who sent me this link to a very interesting paper on argentatus, it explains well why they are so rare down here - cheers Brett! Well worth a read if you are that way inclined; http://www.kensor.net/Papers/scand1.html

I've had a bit of a different morning today, I fancied a change of scenery. All will be revealed in my next post...

Water Pipits

Wow what a lovely day it has been, a proper cold frosty wintry one. Lovely. It's days like these that I really enjoy being a dog owner...

Honey playing in a puddle of ice

Really gorgeous scenes at Lower Bruckland Ponds this morning

As the title suggests this post is mostly about Water Pipits.  This species used to be a regular winter visitor to the Axe, in particular Colyford Marsh where up to double figures could be seen feeding in the long grass beyond the main scrape.  During the winter of '03/'04 numbers peaked with up to 18 on a field next to Colyford WTW - this was quite a sight.  

Since then though numbers have declined drastically and over the past four or five years we haven't had any over winter with us at all, the peak month now is April when spring birds pass through.  It's really odd why they have become so rare as the habitat they use is still the same, in fact more of it has been created - a true mystery.  On Saturday though Phil had at least five on Bridge Marsh, so on Monday I gave this area plenty of time as I was keen to seen some.  After twenty minutes of looking Water Pipits began to make themselves known and I saw at least seven (all perched on a fence at the same time) although I think there were probably more like nine present.  It's so great to have them back, let's hope they begin to winter with us once again.

Ducks

I have only had chance for a whistle-stop tour of the river mid morning. The best spot was Bridge Marsh, with MASSIVE numbers of ducks on what water was left over from yesterday...

Tons of ducks!

There were 410 Wigeon and 90 Teal on this pool. I looked hard for a vertical stripe amongst the Teal, or some nice salmon pink flanks amongst the Wigeon...but not today (either would be an over due patch first!). Two drake Gadwall were notable though, out first of the autumn I believe.

Whilst downloading these pics, a couple of Raven flight shots dropped on to my computer that I'd taken yesterday...

Croak croak

In the last week I've learnt of a 'new birder on the block'. Rodney who lives in Axminster cashed in on the Little Gull influx yesterday with a first-winter on his part of the Axe at Axminster. Much more gripping though was the juv/female Long-tailed Duck he had on 30th Oct during a sea watch in stormy conditions from Seaton Beach. His exacts words were "it was flying so close to the beach it was almost within touching distance"....GRIPPED!! But an excellent record nevertheless! :-)

Back to my Bonxie experience of yesterday, I did try to take a video as it flew around above my head, despite being stood right besides the crashing waves in gale force winds and torrential rain! I knew it was going to come out rubbish and wasn't worth posting, but that hasn't stopped me before....

This video doesn't do it justice at all, but it does show how it just stayed above my head!