Honey Buzzard and Brown Hairstreak

Considering I haven't properly been out birding today, as the post title implies it's not been too shabby at all...

I was travelling from a to b this morning with Harry in the back of the car when I figured I had time for a five minute scan over the valley from the Axmouth farm gate (if the patience of the back seat passenger allowed it!). Almost immediately I picked up a super high flying raptor circling over Colyford Marsh and it just didn't look 'right'.  It was at that point much to my frustration I realised my telescope wasn't in the car, so all I could do was watch it in my bins some more before grabbing my trusty P900. The bird was always gaining height, and I managed to get one pic before it got so high the camera would no longer focus on it.  About thirty seconds later it began a determined-looking glide heading off purposely south west.

I'd seen enough with my bins to put out news of a 'possible Honey Buzzard' to my fellow patch birders, but it wasn't until about two hours ago that I downloaded the photo onto my laptop...

Uncropped

Same snap but heavily cropped!

And there it is - a dark juv Honey Buzzard!  Note the long and broad tail with 2 or 3 narrow but distinct black bars, the narrow base to wings with dark bulging secondaries, black carpal patch, solidly dark brown underparts and a nice yellow bill!  Although it's a fresh juv it seems to have a damaged or missing inner primary on its left wing.

I've been fairly lucky with patch Honey Buzzard's as this represents my third, although the last one was way back on 24th Sept 2008!  Amazingly I saw the 2008 bird from exactly the same spot as today's, and that was also a lone dark juv - although thankfully flying much lower in the sky!  2008 was a proper influx year with large numbers noted in September, although most of them staying well east of us. 

2019 really is proving the year of raptors on the Axe with long-saying Osprey and Marsh Harrier, the Goshawk last month and now this! Hopefully a nice Pallid Harrier is just around the corner to finish the year off in style...

To complete my bird news for today, I had a Wheatear land on the roof next to Mum and Dad's house.  When you see a wacky thing like this you know it's a good day for migration! Plenty of Meadow Pipits flying over whenever I was outside too.

And now for the Brown Hairstreak - a first for me and following the Long-tailed Blues another butterfly first on patch!  Exactly a week ago Pam Parsons photographed a Brown Hairstreak on Colyford Common (tweeted HERE) - been only one or two patch records of this species in the last five years.  So whilst I was down the wetlands with Harry and Jess this afternoon, I left them behind for ten minutes to check the general area Pam photographed it.  As it was a whole week ago and probably involved just one insect, I really wasn't expecting anything.

I was wrong to be so pessimistic...

The first view I got - a female Brown Hairstreak!

I can only really describe the orange as 'Gatekeeper-orange'

And what an underwing!

I watched her for about five minutes, egg laying on a blackthorn just to the left of the lower entrance gate to Colyford Common.  If anyone is interested in looking for her, she spent the whole time on the lower left hand side of this bush...

Surely the very same insect!?

I've heard many people saying how hard these are to get good views of - so I was well and truly spoilt today.  A larger butterfly than I was expecting, although if it were fluttering around the top of a tall ash tree am sure it would look far smaller!  Thanks Pam for tweeting the original picture out a week ago.

Today was a nice reminder of how lucky I am to live where I do. From my house I can walk to the Brown Hairstreak bush within ten minutes, and I probably could have scoped the Honey Buzzard from my back garden! 

Even More Water Pipits

Jess and I had a house sort out day today, which often happens once the Chirstmas decs have come down in early January. But as morning turned to afternoon, Harry made it clear he needed a nap, so I selflessly offered to take him out for a walk so he could enjoy a bit of peace and quiet and knock out some zzz's. Amazingly we wound up at Colyford Common again...

Much duller light today, but thankfully less wind, although a few more people were around which meant the Pipits were a bit more flighty.  There were more of them though, and twice I counted twelve birds, an impressive ten Water Pipits and two Rock Pipits. Thanks to the versatile Nikon P900 I managed to take (record) shots of all twelve in one scan. Now you're welcome to switch off now, as what follows is nothing better than poor photos of twelve Pipits, but crucially they are poor photos of twelve different Pipits...

Rock Pipit one

Rock Pipit two (back) and Water Pipit one

Water Pipit two

Water Pipits three and four

Water Pipit five

Water Pipits six and seven (seven is unidentifiable in this pic I'm afraid)

Water Pipit eight

Water Pipits nine and ten

Wow, I'm impressed if you're still with me! If so, the exciting news is that if you check back tomorrow there will no doubt be even MORE Water Pipit photos ;-)

Water Pipits

We've had a Water Pipit knocking around the Bridge Marsh area since early December, but a week or so ago Twilight Tim (aka Davey Macbrayne) clocked the presence of up to four birds in the Colyford Common area. Today he saw 5-7 birds, so I convinced Jess we should take Harry for a stroll down the Wetlands for his afternoon nap, despite the harsh and extremely cold north east wind! Luckily Jess is as fond of the Wetlands as I am, so not much convincing was required :-)

Back in the day when Water Pipit was a regular and fairly numerous winter visitor here, there was a rule which nine times out of ten Pipits stuck too. A large Pipit on the west side of the tramline (Colyford Common) would be a Rock Pipit. A large Pipit on the east side of the tramline (Colyford Marsh) would be a Water Pipit. Although this sounds very sweeping and unscientific, which it is, it was nearly always true. Rock Pipits would break the rule now and then and flew east, but hardly ever would a Water Pipit fly west over the tramline. Must have been something about the habitat.  

So what is amazing about the current birds, is that they are actually on Colyford Common, the west side of the tramline. They still seem to keep their distance from any onlookers, but it's a damn-sight better than them being out in the middle of Colyford Marsh that's for sure! I only had ten minutes with them this afternoon, but the light was stunning, and my highest count was of six birds, along with one Rock Pipit and a couple of Meadow Pipits...

Four in one shot was the most I managed. Pity I wasn't stood on that bit of boardwalk in shot though!

All eye-stripes, wing bars, and white bellies!

The larger Pipits (Rock and Water) have a far more laboured way of walking when compared to the smaller Meadow Pipit

This was the most diffuse bird present, in fact I wondered about Buff-bellied when I first saw it! The late afternoon sun is making it look warmer toned than it was. 

Grey nape showing well on this bird in this pic

The Pipits shared the ground with Starlings, but not a lot else!

All in all an enjoyable ten minutes. If you're passing I urge you to enjoy them whilst they're here, it's not often you can see Water Pipits showing like this and at this distance. I'm going back for seconds that's for sure!

Little Gull Interrupts Sea Watch

With a passage of Velvet Scoters through Portland over the last few days (but nowhere else - not seen anything off here at all lately!) the increased southerly wind meant I was back at the seafront this morning. Well as soon as I could be anyway as we had a new washing machine delivered this morning, which amazingly arrived prior to 07:30 - impressive!

The sea watch was briefly interrupted when Ian Mc rang at about 08:45 with news of a first-winter Little Gull on Colyford Scrape.  The last year I did a year list I missed out on this species, so I hot footed it straight to the Farm Gate at Axmouth where the Little Gull was viewable distantly on the scrape - exactly where I saw my last one last year...

Distant phone-scoped pic

Also saw my first two Swallows of the year here, which I picked up whilst scanning for the Little Gull that briefly went missing when I first arrived.  There's got to be a slight chance the Little Gull is the same one that's been on Bowling Green Marsh (Exe Estuary) for a few weeks, as there's no sign of it there today. If it is hopefully that gorgeous Bonaparte's Gull will follow it east...

I was keen to get back to the sea as quickly as possible, although the first half hour of the sea watch was completely dead, the wind turned from south to south west, and after that a few more bits and pieces began passing.  Full totals for 08:00 - 08:45, 09:00 - 09:45 were; 

31 Common Scoter 

1 Red-throated Diver

1 Diver sp.

1 Razorbill

1 Curlew

11 Sandwich Tern

So although it wasn't a big haul, the regular small groups of passing Common Scoters were more than enough to keep me there. Sadly no white secondaries in with them though. It was nice to see my first Sandwich Terns of the year too, with a further four west at 13:45 this afternoon.

Yesterday Knot was added to my Patchwork Challenge year list, with one keeping the Grey Plover company on Black Hole Marsh in the morning. Good to get that one on the list nice and early in the year.

Littorathey

See what I did there?  If not, hopefully once you've seen the contents of this post it will be more obvious :-).

Completely fogged out this morning on my PWC patch, which could well have cost me Whooper Swan as one flew east past Cogdon and on to West Bexington at 10am. If it could have seen our valley it may well have chosen to land here. Drat.

Thankfully the fog cleared early afternoon, but a few hours out and about failed to show much of interest. Except possibly a couple of Rock Pipits...

We used to get a double figure flock of Rock Pipits on Colyford Common during the winter months, and they always seemed to turn a bit pink in late winter and then get considerably pink and even a touch blue headed in early spring before disappearing. So safe to say they were probably mostly (or all?) Scandinavian littoralis birds.  But we haven't had these birds for several years now, so it was really nice to see two or three Rock Pipits on Colyford Common this afternoon...

The identification of winter plumaged littoralis Rock Pipit is a minefield. Well actually most papers and sources say it's impossible. Whilst there are features to look for in winter plumaged littoralis, none are clinching and a nominate petrosus Rock Pipit could also show these features.

This enabled me to conclude that today's birds on Colyford Common were.... Rock Pipits. 

To be honest they do just look like Rock Pipits to me, nothing that different to what I'd expect to see grubbing about among the boats on Beer Beach. But this doesn't mean they are not littoralis, as guess what, winter plumaged littoralis can look just like petrosus!  

In The News

The River Axe was mentioned on the BBC National News several times today - but for the wrong reasons.

A huge amount of rain (and I'm sure not helped by big tides and a gusty southerly wind) has caused horrendous flooding in the area. A lot like many other places in the south west today. The damage it has caused to houses, businesses and roads is very sad to see, but the effect on the local wildlife must be catastrophic.

Pictures never give the full effect of something like this, but here's a few anyway...

The Axe Estuary today about an hour before low tide!

From the farm gate

Note how on the far side of the tram line it looks like one huge lake - the whole of Colyford Common, Black Hole Marsh, Seaton Marshes and the fields in between were flooded into one. The bank at Seaton Marshes stopped the flooding continuing any further south.

So I thought I'd go around to Black Hole Marsh...

The entrance track - I couldn't even get to the gate!

So I then tried to get down to Colyford Common...

Ok - maybe not!

As usual the A3052 flooded over and it was closed by the bridge.

These are the fields just south west of Boshill Cross

The rain wasn't just causing problems via the river...

One of many that I've seen today

And this land slide by the side of the harbour was pretty dramatic to see. Totally blocked the path to the beach east of the harbour...

Note the tree in the river!

The only birds I've seen of note today were two commic Terns south down the Estuary and a Hobby low over Black Hole Marsh. These really are insignificant though when you think how today has affected our local breeding birds - I should imagine ALL Reed/Sedge Warblers nests have been flooded out today. Disaster.

A Couple Of Hours This Evening

I spent a very pleasant couple of hours at Colyford Common and Blackhole Marsh tonight. The highlight was this lovely adult Wood Sand found earlier by Ian M...

my third of the year already!

I also saw; three Teal, one Little Ringed Plover (juv), nine Dunlin, 11 Common Sands, one Green Sand, six Blackwits, one Common Gull (my first of the autumn), several Sand Martins (most heading south) and two Whitethroat.

Might as well post this photo of a Comma here too, it's been on my camera for about a week!...

More Spring Goodies

Whilst at work last night, a White Stork was serenading birders at Colyford Common... gripping!

So this morning, I was out early and very pleased to see it was still with us beside the scrape at Colyford Marsh. A little while later I photographed it from Colyford Common hide...

my third patch White Stork

At about 09:20 it was seen to take off, and fly off north west...

Another bonus this morning was a cracking Wood Sandpiper on Colyford Common. It spent about five minutes on 'the wet patch' (viewable from the Field Studies Base), and even began singing (something I've never seen or heard before!). I didn't take any photos of it as the light was awful - though just as I was thinking about getting my Lumix out for a record shot, it took off and flew north calling...

Colyford Common Ringing

I was a little late this morning, I thought I pressed the 'snooze' button, but I actually pressed the 'go away I want to sleep' button! I finally got down to Colyford Common at 8:30. The reserve looked stunning...

There had been a very hard frost. It had taken me a few minutes to get the ice off my windscreen

The sun soon warmed everything up though, and it has turned out to be a beautiful day!

Although ringing was never busy, there was a good variety, with one stand out highlight....

A Snipe - one totally STUNNING creature in the hand!

We trapped yet another unringed Cetti's Warbler. Cetti's is the only UK bird to have ten tail feathers...

....see!

In the clear conditions Skylarks were on the move over head in some numbers but little else. A few Fieldfares were kicking about with at least two Water Pipits and two Green Sandpipers on the marsh.

Couldn't see the Long-billed Dowitcher or any Whooper Swans during a quick look about early afternoon.

Patch Tick!

This morning the Axe Estuary Ringing Group had a session planned at Colyford Common - at this time of year we net in the crop field and the north end of the reserve. I was there at half seven, and although ringing was never 'busy' - there was always a trickle of birds.

Just as I was closing the ring on a 'new' Cetti's Warbler that we had just caught, these small clumps of reeds...

(known as Fraser's reed bed)

....suddenly came alive with the calls of Bearded Tits! EPIC!

After a bit of scanning, I spied a female/juvenile sat out on top of one of the nearest patches of reeds. Another female/juvenile joined it and they spent the next few minutes flitting between reeds calling to each other. PATCH TICK!!!!

All nine of us managed to see them, and as we were cursing ourselves for deciding NOT to put a net up in the reed bed today, the Beardies took to the air and gained height rapidly. They started heading off north, but turned around and disappeared into the sun south east. Calling all the way.

Now if I hadn't have had a Cetti's Warbler in my hand, then I'm sure I would be posting some photos of them. But I did, so here's a photo of another Tit with a long-tail...

Pity it didn't bring a stripey warbler with it!

Saw plenty of other birds whilst ringing. A couple of Brambling paused briefly in trees, where a Fieldfare 'chaked' from for half an hour or so early on. A few Redwings were knocking around, as were up to ten Reed Buntings. Overhead Skylarks were passing over in good numbers, and a few small flocks of Wood Pigeons totalled c250 birds.

On Colyford Marsh, a low flying Buzzard spooked over 300 Wigeon and 150+ Lapwing. At least four Rock Pipits were on Colyford Common with a Green Sandpiper and a Snipe also noted.

Nice to see plenty of Common Darters still out in the sunshine, and a female Migrant Hawker.

For some unknown reason, I put a moth trap out last night! I really shouldn't have bothered as this morning I had only one moth to look at....a worn Large Yellow Underwing.

I'll end this post with a couple of photos I forgot I took! They were taken during my second unsucessful search for Lap Bunt at Axe Cliff sometime last week...

Now that's what I call a Bunting!