Knot Good

High tide is around dawn at the moment, so for the last two mornings Black Hole Marsh has been the obvious place to see the new day in. 06:10 - 08:15 yesterday from the Island Hide showed;

2 Grey Plover

14 Dunlin

1 Knot

3 Common Sandpiper

7 Bar-tailed Godwit

3 Water Rail

3 Sedge Warbler

Out of that list, maybe just a handful of Dunlin and the Knot were the only 'new' birds. Not quite the arrival of waders I was hoping for.  Very sad tale to the Knot though, as shortly after I picked it up flying around over the marsh, it struck an overhead cable right in front of the Island Hide. Poor thing dropped like a stone...

A very sorry sight

I thought it was dead, but it got itself together and swam to the nearest island and out of view.  Neither of the wings looked broken, and I was pleased to see Tim White report the presence of a Knot at Black Hole mid afternoon, so hopefully it lives on.  So sad though to think it has just flown all they way from Arctic only for this to happen.

Later on yesterday, five Ringed Plover were on the Estuary.

This morning Black Hole was no different, except for the light conditions...

 Beautiful isn't it.

 It's also upside down!  This is right way up...

And here's a less cropped version to prove it...

The reflection of the sky looked absolutely stunning. Really beautiful. Good job too because the bird situation was pretty dismal. Still a couple of Grey Plovers about and 14 Dunlin again but nothing new.  I even resorted to photographing a Little Egret...

A Frustrating Few Days

This could easily be a down-beat blog post, but I'm going to try my hardest to not let it go that way...

Let's start with a nice Wheatear photo, one of four that I saw yesterday...

Positive positive positive...

The Little Stint from the Tower Hide was nice yesterday too, as was meeting Mike Hill (an ex Channel Island ringer).  But that was about it.

A good look round the Estuary and marshes this morning revealed the following;

45 Wigeon
190 Teal
2 Shoveler
4 Water Rail
14 Lapwing
2 Ringed Plover
9 Dunlin
1 Little Stint
75 Redshank
19 Black-tailed Godwit
16 Bar-tailed Godwit
6 Chiffchaff
3 Yellow Wagtail

No White Wags this morning, but had a couple on Black Hole Marsh over the weekend. I wasted far too much of this morning grilling this (I thought) interesting looking first-winter male Wigeon...

Sadly its underwings proved it was just an Eurasian Wigeon, but there you go, you've got to be in it to win it.  Thanks to Bun for the second pair of eyes from a different angle.  Not only did it waste my time, but it reminded me of the 'fun' we had over the winter of 2011/12 when a pale female Wigeon was knocking around...

http://stevesbirdingblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/more-wigeon-fun.html

Right that's me done, I'll sign off with a few random photos...

Juv Little Egret Seaton Marshes

An atmospheric shot of Jess at Seaton Marshes

The moon, taken on the night of 16th Sept with my Nikon P900

Plan B

Today, Plan A was ringing at Beer Head. I've been desperate to get in a good session up here, so was up there at 5:30 this morning and walked out to my ringing spot.  I have absolutely no idea why I bothered walking out there though as the moment I stepped out the car I could see it was far too windy to even contemplate mist netting.  Bugger it. Plan B it was then - but I didn't have a plan B! Seeing as I was up, and there was an east wind blowing, I headed to the beach for a sea watch.

I arrived way before dawn, but could already see Gannets streaming east close in. Within an hour and a bit at least 160 Gannets flew by, but sadly not much else did, with just three Common Scoter, one Teal, three Oystercatcher, four Dunlin, two Common Tern (juv and ad) and a Sandwich Tern in the note book.  

The best bird was this cracking first-winter Yellow-legged Gull settled on the beach, but sadly it disappeared before the sun came up so apologies for the dull and grainy pic...

A nice white-headed example

The sunrise was quite odd. Well there wasn't one due to the cloud cover, but there must have been a gap somewhere as the white cliffs of Beer Head became red...

No sun anywhere else. Made the chalk look like sandstone!

I had another look over the sea late morning during a rain shower. There was still very little/nothing passing, but I was pleased to have much better views of the first-winter Yellow-legged Gull on the beach...

Pale almost white ground colour to the underparts, very white head with hints of a darker eye-mask, rich brown uppers (making it look very contrasty) and crucially lots of moulted first-winter scapulars.

See what I mean about the contrasty look to it, flanked here by two juv Herring Gulls (note how the left hand Herring has moulted some scapular feathers already). Also those long and mostly dark tertials really stand out. It was a bigger bird too, although doesn't look like it in this pic as it's slightly further away. That's a juvenile Great Black-backed Gull in the foreground, these nearly always show that 'frosty' appearance.

In flight it showed the typical white tail (clean white in the top corners) with neat and fairly narrow black tail band, and a restricted pale inner primary window. Watching it flying around with Herring Gulls showed it was obviously longer winged, and the paler underparts really made it stand out.

Later I saw it again on the Estuary, along with a decent number of Great and Lesser Black-backed Gulls (some of the latter looking very dark backed), 19 Dunlin and 11 Ringed Plover. The biggest surprise was seeing a flock of 14 commic Terns flying rapidly south down river and off out to sea. I got on them too late to ID, and have a feeling we may have missed several more groups doing this as all the Tern passage in south Devon was southward.

And that's pretty much my birding day. So although it didn't go at all to plan, and we missed out on a lot of the action seen elsewhere in Devon, it was still an enjoyable one. 

I'll finish this post with a photo I took a few days ago, when the weather was much calmer...

Taken pre-dawn at Black Hole Marsh

A Summary Of The Last Week

Well I think we can safely say there's been a shift in the weather. We've had some pretty intense thunder storms and showers during the nights this week, and along with the full moon I thought this would have made for some good wader passage. It certainly started well on Sunday, but has flat-lined since and there's not been anything obviously new in.  All the birding time I've had in the past week I've spent it at either at Black Hole Marsh or on Seaton Beach. I'll start with what the beach has given me, and I'll start with this morning...

For the first time for weeks and weeks, the sea wasn't flat calm. This was thanks to a southerly wind which felt really good, and I was hoping it would do something. It didn't. In half an hour I had (all west): 28 Common Scoter, three Sandwich Tern (incl. my first juv) and two Med Gulls (ad and juv).

Yesterday morning amongst the gulls on the beach (and there have been loads) were singles of juvenile Med and Lesser Black-backed Gulls (both my first of this age for the year). Offshore very little was moving, although a flock of nine Manxies came from nowhere and flew into the bay, before heading off east.

The previous morning (Monday) two adult Med Gulls were offshore, with two Little Egrets in off, 16 Common Scoter east and a few Gannets west.   

Black Hole Marsh has been graced by a stunning male Ruff since Sunday afternoon, no photos of it here but there's plenty around on the usual local photography blogs. There's also been four Little Ringed Plovers (two ads, two juvs - also present since Sunday), up to 13 Dunlin, three Greenshank, two Green Sandpipers and the usual Lapwing, Black-tailed Godwits and Common Sands.  Lots of Black-headed Gulls are still using Black Hole as a high tide roost site, regularly bringing in Med Gulls, of which I had four of (three second summers and an adult) on Monday.  In the past week allowing for duplication I can safely say I've seen at least 18 Med Gulls on patch, hopefully a sign of things to come for us.

I wrote the above paragraph yesterday, and this morning Black Hole Marsh was empty! No Dunlin, Ruff of Little Ringed Plovers.  I can only assume a bird of prey (or something else?) flushed everything just before my arrival.

I've got some house/garden birding news too.  Since my last post I've added two species to the house list, both heard only though.  On 17th (last Wednesday) just after 22:00 I heard a/the Little Ringed Plover call twice on Black Hole Marsh, and on 20th 2+ Crossbill flew over (east I think)!  On Monday evening from the bedroom I thought I'd check and count the Little Egret roost. By 21:20 I'd notched up 57 Little Egrets, but sadly no other species.  Worthwhile though as that's a decent count for us.

Lastly, well for the birdie bit of this blog post, obviously the ultimate juv Yellow-legged Gull ID guide is on Not Quite Scilly, but have a look at the following link. In particular the lower photo showing the open wing of a juvenile Yellow-legged Gull (the bird in flight), and I suspect by total fluke, a juvenile Herring Gull too (the bird on the water). Subtle but conclusive...

http://www.devonbirds.org/news/bird_news/devon_bird_news?blogEntry=3164

Right, time for some moth pics and updates now! There's four traps full of moths to talk about, so I'll try and condense it and make it as pretty as possible.

First of all I'll talk about my night of mothing at a new site near Colyford on the night of 13th/14th. It's basically a large garden, high up, on the edge of mixed farm land and not far at all from woodland.  The weather was perfect for mothing and in the morning I had 287 moths of 58 species.  This included a new species for me...

Cloaked Carpet

And there were plenty of other highlights...

Scallop Shell

Scarce Silver-lines

Drinker moth

Peach Blossom - not rare but always great to see

Just for interest, a White Ermine in front of a Buff Ermine

The other three nights of moth trapping have been at my usual site, Mum and Dad's garden.  The most recent attempt, last Sunday night, was cut short. Shortly after darkness fell we had the most horrendous rain storm, so the trap had to be turned off. At 2am though the rain had passed so the trap was turned back on. 

As it wasn't a full night I didn't count everything as I usually do, but I was surprised how much was in there. The highlight being a first for the garden!  This is exciting as I don't get many any more, and it was quite a nice one too...

Blue-bordered Carpet

It was also good to see some new species for the year, with at least six of these...

Rosy Footman

And one of these...

Ruby Tiger

The other nights I trapped were the 14th when I caught 176 moths of 41 species and the 16th when I caught 184 moths of 48 species.

Thie highlights were...

Scorched Carpet - I don't catch many of these

Female Ghost Moth, again I catch very few of these

My second Small Elephant Hawkmoth of the year

Beautiful Hook-tip - common but my first of the year

Scalloped Oak - again common but my first of the year

 Hopefully I'll have some notable birds to blog about in the near future, even a Wood Sandpiper would do!

A Late Morning Mooch Of The Marshes

I thought I'd pay Blackhole and Colyford Marshes a visit at high tide today, nice to see a few more waders coming through.

On Blackhole Marsh, our sixth Little Ringed Plover of the 'autumn' was distantly visible from the island hide...

I did say it was distant!

Also on show were several Common Sands, four Dunlin and ten rather fine looking Blackwits. Several Little Egrets were feeding close to the hide...

Shame it wasn't the orange punk that's on the Otter at the moment!

On Colyford scrape were six more Dunlin, two Lapwing and a Green Sandpiper. A second Green Sandpiper was on Colyford Common itself.

To end this somewhat brief post I must just mention the Greenshank I saw on the Estuary yesterday, and post this photo of a Great Spotted Woodpecker from Colyford Common today...

There are plenty of trees about for it!?

Spring Is Fading Fast...

Colyford Scrape this morning had two Ringed Plover and six Dunlin on it. Which although poor - is twice as good as yesterday morning!

In May most years we get flocks of Dunlin in three figures on the Estuary - but not this year! It really has been woefully poor for wading birds this month - I think the distinct lack of rain has a lot to do with it. The beach is usually a really good place for resting spring migrant wading birds - I've 'endured' several morning beach walks over the past few weeks and haven't seen a single wader!

Anyway that is more than enough negativity from me in this post, so here are a few snaps I've taken over the past couple of days... (yes you can tell it is quiet because I am pointing my camera at these birds!)...

Three breeding plumage Little Egrets acquiring breakfast outside Colyford Common hide yesterday

How exciting - a Canada Goose!!

A Mistle Thrush collecting food in Axmouth - a nice juicy caterpillar and a worm for its chicks

A singing male Yellowhammer at Axmouth

Last night I had a moth trap out in that back garden, a few more new species for the year were amongst the 34 moths of 13 species...

1 Red Twin-spot Carpet
1 Silver-ground Carpet
1 Scalloped Hazel
1 Peppered Moth
2 Poplar Hawkmoth
1 Elephant Hawkmoth
2 Orange Footman
2 Shuttle-shaped Dart
9 Heart and Dart
1 Hebrew Character
1 Ingrailed Clay
8 Trebble Lines
6 Vine's Rustic

Elephant Hawkmoth

Ingrailed Clay

Off to work for me now - something I seem to be doing too much of, of late...

An Afternoon Tour Of The Marshes

Had a wander around Blackhole, Stafford and Colyford Marshes this afternoon - no sign of the two Wood Sands seen here last night and this morning. I did see a few bits though...

Ringed Plover numbers doubled whilst I was there, as a flock of 15 flew in from the west (making a total of at least 31). Dunlin numbers remain similar and the two Little Stints also remain. The juvenile came a little closer for me today, it's just a pity the wind was blowing my scope all over the place...

Corking little thing

A Ruff was nice to see - my second of the 'autumn' - and this is an awful flight shot of it...

I said it was awful!

Also on Blackhole three Blackwits and a few Common Sands. Colyford Common gave four Wheatear and a Greenshank, and Colyford Marsh showed four more Greenshank (with the fifth bird joining them from Colyford Common). Also a single Lapwing by the main scrape.

Earlier in the day, a sweep of the Estuary showed the Red-crested Pochard still with us...

Hanging out with two WILD Mallards! :-)

Have got a busy three days coming up, but may be able to get out birding for at least a small part of tomorrow and Saturday. I'll finish this post with this photo...

Little Egret taken with the Lumix