Track My Osprey

Well I've still not seen an Osprey from the house... but I have seen two Ospreys!

The first was during our daily family walk through the wetlands on Saturday afternoon. It flew up and down the Estuary, looked to hunt but then circled low over Black Hole Marsh before completely vanishing...

My best shot - shortly after taking this I lost it. Still don't really know how!

Although I didn't notice this in the field, when I came home and downloaded the photos it turned out it wasn't your average Osprey.  As you can see in the below pics, this bird has an unusual and fairly large white patch in its left wing...

I put a plea out on Twitter, hoping someone else may have seen this bird during migration, or better still knows where it breeds.  So far I've had just the one positive response, and that was from our very own Phil! He photographed the same Osprey on the Axe back in April 2018, see this tweet...

So we know it likes coming through the Axe in spring - but come on birders of the UK/the world, someone somewhere must know or have seen this Osprey before!? It's at least three years old now and it would be great to track some of its movements.

The second Osprey I saw this week was from my office at work, I spied it after all the gulls lifted up on Monday at about 10:40.  It flew up river and was later seen to catch at fish north of Tower Hide, per James Chubb. It came 50 minutes after a Red Kite flew low east overhead, also flushing the gulls.  Now that's what I call a productive morning at work!

I have managed some more house ticks for the lockdown list since my last post.  My total now stands at 66 thanks to a waffling Green Woodpecker on Friday morning (not often heard here so much appreciated), my first two House Martins of the year, along with quite possibly my last two Wigeon of the winter (they flew into Black Hole Marsh just prior to dusk) on Sunday, a vocal Coot flying around for twenty minutes after dark on Monday and several Swallows today - along with a few more House and Sand Martins.

I'll finish this post with a bit of national gull news.  The American Herring Gull from West Bexington and here, turned up in south Cornwall at the weekend.  Amazing that it's still around but has only just appeared for the third time.  And today I was completely shocked to receive a request to ID a gull from a mate who lives on a farm on the Devon/Dorset border - it was a first-winter Laughing Gull!  Stunning find Neil well done, hopefully it will make its way to the coast soon enough.

Frosty Morning

What a stunning morning, just what winter should be like. It started off here at -4 when I headed out at 8am, and was still just -1 at 10am. 

Birding-wise today was one of those days you want on a New Years Day bird race.  There's some resident species that although are probably always here, aren't always easy to find.  And these are even harder when considering my PWC patch is vastly smaller than the Patch.  But I was on it this morning.

A dog walk up and back the one lane in Axmouth that is on my PWC patch just wouldn't stop delivering with Green Woodpecker, Kestrel, Jay (two), Stock Dove, Marsh Tit (two), Red-legged Partridge, Treecreeper and Yellowhammer all added to the year list. I was also surprised to see a Water Rail and a Little Egret here in a tiny wooded stream, presumably birds slightly dispersed by the cold weather.

Prior to this Lower Bruckland Ponds gave me another tricky resident year tick, with two Mistle Thrush. And a sea watch was worthwhile first thing (despite the 'sea fog') with groups of five and two Brent Geese east and three Great Crested Grebes on the sea.

So all in all a pretty successful morning. Thoroughly enjoyable too which I suppose is most important.

Yesterday the only patch birding I managed was a 40 mins sea watch first thing. Pretty quiet, although two year ticks came in the form of two Red-throated Divers and a Common Scoter past.

The rest of yesterday was spent off patch with Jess and Honey, but I must just mention our trip to Topsham...

We basically went to the Rec at Topsham to eat a doughnut.  But came away having seen a Yellow-browed Warbler, a Long-tailed Duck, two Goldeneye, a few Avocet and Red-breasted Mergansers, and heaps of common wading birds. Now that's what I call a good doughnut!

Mid pm edit: I finally ran into the wintering Black Redstart this afternoon, on a house roof near Axmouth Yacht Club. Far more of a surprise though were a pair of Red-breasted Mergansers that flew east offshore just after 14:00. RB Mergs are just about annual on patch, but you could easily go a year without seeing one here. Bonus!
 

First Bird Ringing Of 2016

With a couple of days midweek forecasted to have little/no wind, I wanted to get out with my mist nets on at least one of them, so yesterday headed out to the superb Lower Bruckland Ponds...

Because it was so cold I only put two nets up, and didn't open them until the sun had come up. It's only right to be extra cautious when ringing in cold conditions like this.  The two nets in two and a half hours gave me just nine birds, but it was quality not quantity. 

Over the past few weeks I've been chatting to other patch birders about how scarce Green Woodpeckers have become, I hear them only very occasionally now and I've not seen one on patch for over a year. But as I was putting up my nets I heard one call in the distance, so once the nets were up I gave Bun a call to let him know there is still at least one left here!  While we were nattering it flew down from the slopes above and began feeding around the base of some of the small trees at the Ponds.  Occasionally it flew up to a large oak, which is when I was able to get this snap...

From this oak it kept returning to the same small trees to feed in, but after taking this photo it flew straight for the clump of trees which had one of my mist nets in.  I looked around the corner and was shocked to see it IN my mist net!!!  I ran...

This, not surprisingly, is the first Green Woodpecker I've ever ringed.  And it's a bird I thought I would never ring around here, what an absolute privilege.  Lower Bruckland Ponds is a big site, and two mist nets covers such a tiny proportion of it - I was so so lucky!

The other eight birds caught included a couple more notable highlights. Two of the four Goldcrests I caught already had rings on, one was a bird I ringed here on 1st Nov 2015. Really interesting to see it is over wintering at the ponds, and it was half a gram heavier so it must be doing ok. The other ringed Goldcrest wasn't one of mine, anyone reading this recognise ring number CPX749? 

Two male Siskins were great to ring, the flock has been here since October but they are very hard to catch as they usually stay up at the tops of the trees...

And the last highlight, in fact the last of the nine birds I caught, was this fantastic male Stonechat - he's been overwintering at the Ponds and I see him most times I visit...

What a fantastic morning, lovely weather too. Sadly though it looks like we've slipped back to wet and windy conditions again...