It's been a hectic few work weeks for me, but with a gap in my diary yesterday morning I took the opportunity to take Dad to Axminster to see the lingering Whooper Swan (which is the same bird I had in Colyford in October), and then the Chard Reservoir female-type Smew.
The Whooper Swan was the only swan in the field yesterday (north of the B3261 where the river runs under the road), whereas when I saw it here a week ago it was one of about twelve! It was nice to see a Green Sandpiper as well, presumably displaced due to the high river levels.
I could never tire of seeing winter swans!
Same bill pattern as the Colyford bird, plus slight copper staining on the top of its head
Then it was time for the Smew at Chard Res - and wow what a bird! It started off distant but took flight and landed in a much closer corner of the Res, where it would sometimes loosely follow groups of Mallards around. The light was always a bit bright and we were often looking directly into it, but I couldn't believe how close it came! It's a real corker, and am surprised it's not proving more popular with photographers...
A brilliant bird. My first Smew for many years, and another cracking bird for the Chard area (always a bit gripping considering how close we are to Chard!).
Although it's off patch, I just had to pay the Little Bunting that James Mc found on Trinity Hill late Saturday a visit. Full marks to James for this great find, who (thanks to news from Sue Murphy) kept on checking the flock of up to 80 Reed Buntings that are feeding/roosting here. A great example of how some clever thinking, and persistence, can pay off.
The weather this afternoon was dreadful, and Trinity Hill was fogged out and wet. You couldn't make out anything further than about 25m away, so I chose to just stand by some bushes and wait. About 30 Reed Buntings and 20 minutes later, 'tic tic'...
What a terrific little bird. Although when I say little, not that much smaller than a Reed Bunting if you ask me. Clearly shorter tailed though. It was great to hear it call several times, so Robin-like but just a little cleaner, not so liquidy if that makes any sense. If you're going to try and see it yourself hopefully this map helps, the red cross is where I stood...
Now back to the patch, my PWC patch to be precise. It took until today for Golden Plover to be added to my PWC list, despite up to 70being present for most of this winter about two miles outside my PWC patch boundary! There seemed to be a load more Lapwing in the valley too, and 'the golden one' was with a small group of Lapwing in the field opposite Colyford WTW at 9am.
My other recent PWC year tick (my first for a week in fact!) was a Little Owl on Saturday evening near Lower Bruckland Ponds. It's nice to know there are still three local spots for this declining species, but there are most definitely fewer around than five years ago.
For a damp, dreary and dull late January day, it's not been too bad at all!
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!
Today I had the chance to get down to Cornwall for some sea watching, having missed out on an excellent weekend of large Shearwater action down there. I will cover the sea watching in another blog post (I left home at 03:20am so have run out of steam now!), but I must just share this stunning bird with you...
This ladies and gentlemen is one of the finest waders in the world, in its finest plumage. It is a juvenile Buff-breasted Sandpiper and has been on Marazion Beach for the past few days.
It's spending all its time feeding on this patch of weed near St. Michaels Mount...
And is allowing pretty close approach...
Which means even hopeless idiots like me can get semi-decent pics of it...
Just look at that. Look at that!!!! The colour of it, those beautiful silver edged mantle feathers giving it a scalloped appearance, that big black puppy-dog eye, the teeny tiny bill and that gentle head shape. And as for those vivid yellow legs.... Oh yes..... And add to all of this, it's smaller than a Turnstone! A work of ornithological art.
And here's some (rather shaky - it was windy!) video of it...
This small patch of weed on a very busy beach was amazing, with several hundred waders feeding on it...
Mostly Dunlin and Ringed Plover, several Turnstone, a few Sanderling and singles of Little Stint and Curlew Sand. This Curlew Sand...
Check back tomorrow for the sea watching news from my Cornish jaunt (unless there's loads of birds about on patch!). Talking of the patch, an Osprey was seen over the Axe at 16:30 today, and I had two juvenile Bar-tailed Godwits on the river this evening.
I didn't need any convincing yesterday to go and see the Pallas's Warbler currently over wintering at Portesham in Dorset. Pallas's are my favourite of the 'regular' sibes, I saw several at Spurn and Dunge in the early 00's - some exceptionally well. But in the ten subsequent years of birding this patch I have seen just one, that was in 2007 and for about twenty seconds! So it was high time I saw another, even though seeing what in my head is a late autumn specialty, in March, could well play havoc with my inbuilt birding body clock!
It was actually dead easy. James Mc and I parked up in Portesham shortly before 10am, casually strolled up to where we thought we should go, and there it was...
Count the head stripes - that's a seven-striped sprite alright
Showing it's Wood Warbler-like white underparts
The yellow tones to the face also reminded me of Wood Warbler colours. Often looked bull-headed too.
In coming - I just love those stripes!
Check out it's arse! Surprised I managed this with my bridge camera.
What a stunning bird, and mind blowing views. No stiff necks looking at tree tops, it spent virtually the whole time feeding at eye level, and for the twenty minutes we were there it remained in view for about 17 of those. It was so easy to follow as all the trees and bushes were completely bare, and it shared the surrounding cover with only a couple of Robins, Dunnocks, one Goldcrest and a Chiffchaff (which looked huge compared to it!). It really seemed to love this bush, the first bush on the right...
It did move into the small copse to the west and across the track south of this bush. But it did seem to like this bush, there were plenty of small flies buzzing around it which may have explained why.
The rump really is amazing. It is virtually impossible to see when perched, but the moment it flies it's like a light bulb. It's even obvious when you just glimpse it flitting about with your naked eye at a distance.
My advice to anyone thinking of going for this bird, go.
Here's a few short videos that I'm sure will tempt even the most stubborn...
I can confirm to you all that without doubt seeing a Pallas's Warbler is an excellent cure for the winter birding blues - almost as much as a male Northern Wheatear (they can't come soon enough!).
As we were Portland way, I couldn't leave without some diver and grebe action, so we headed to Sandsfoot Castle for a quick scan over a nice calm Portland Harbour...
Looking south to Portland
This proved a very worthwhile stop, as a scan from the Sailing Academy, and through some builders fencing a little way back east along the road, showed a pretty decent selection. For us fairly loyal patch birders, Red-breasted Mergansers are exciting enough as they are scarce on our patches, it was great watching the males displaying.
My previous visits here have shown the Black-necked Grebes to be in one or two pretty tight flocks, but today the 12+ present were spread out everywhere; a four, a few pairs and singles. Most were in or coming into summer plumage which was nice, unlike the four Slavonian Grebes - three of these were in winter plumage with the fourth just starting to get dusky down the front. There were stacks of Great Crested Grebes too, all of these were in the far north east corner of the harbour (where one of the Slavs was, another was towards Ferrybridge with two together in the middle of the harbour).
Four Great Northern Divers were all spread out singletons, but the closest diver was a stunning Black-throated Diver. It was quite a hefty one to be honest, looked quite thick-necked and bulky, so am pretty sure it's the one that was showing well from the southern shore of the harbour over the last couple of days. Sadly my photos aren't quite as good as Pete's...
A blurry phone-scoped Black-throated Diver in awful light!
One fat bird!!
With work looming it was time to head back west. But on the way home we called in at Abbotsbury for a look over the Swannery...
The light wasn't too bad when I took this, but the sun soon came out which made viewing more difficult
We were really impressed with the amount of wildfowl here, heaps and heaps of Pintail in particular. All the Pochard were sat out on the bank probably wondering where their lunch was - no wonder they are so rare here now, they are clearly getting lazy! In contrast the Tufties were busy getting their own grub out on the water, and among these were the the two wintering Long-tailed Ducks and at least one and a half Scaup. I say one and a half because I know there's a hybrid ScaupxTuftie here, and I couldn't rule this out on one of the birds - probably because it was the hybrid.
As ever it's not just the birds that make a twitch, but the company. James M is an ace twitching partner as we are both as laid back and relaxed about it as each other - and neither of us actually like twitching! Especially the crowds. We really are bad twitchers, and will only twitch a bird if the chance of seeing it is up around the 100% mark, plus there has to be other birds around to see as well. In general we also have a similar taste in birds and what we think is worth going to see, well that's with the exception of big white things. James seems to think all egrets may as well be Little Egrets (just smaller or bigger versions), and all swans are Mute Swans just with different coloured bills...
I have a real soft spot for wildfowl, especially geese and winter swans. On Tuesday afternoon I noticed on the web that a Southlake Moor on the Somerset Levels had both Bewick's and Whooper Swans. Having not seen either for a good few years I was immediately tempted, and when I googled where Southlake Moor was - not that far away at all - I was even more tempted!
I know many birders who don't really 'get' winter swans - big white birds that, let's be honest, 90% look like Mute Swans. But for me they are just so emotive, a real symbol of winter. When I was at Spurn, the sight of a flock of Whoopers flying south over the North Sea on a cold November morning, heading for their winter retreat (probably Norfolk), was one of the greatest spectacles of the year. And living down here in Devon now, I don't see many of them any more. So, Wednesday morning came, and without thinking twice I was loading up the car and off to Burrowbridge...
Burrow Mump
I parked up in the car park just below the mump, where I was greeted by a vast expanse of water...
Wildfowl haven
...and the stunning sight of eight Whooper Swans on the very nearest bit of it! I couldn't believe my luck at just how close they were, especially considering how much water they had to choose from...
All eight Whoopers, five adults and three immatures
Such an awesome sight
A phone-scoped pic
Not the usual view of a Whoopers bill
They were absolutely top value, frequently calling to each other, wing flapping - completely and utterly fulfilling my winter swan-needs. And then it got even better...
Scanning further afield I picked up two more adult Whooper Swans with Mute Swans on the flood up towards Burrow Wall Farm, and then spied six more winter swans even further away - these were looking Bewicky. I jumped back in to the car and tried looking at the flood water from the village of Stathe...
Success! A short walk along a public footpath gave me an excellent view point where six adult Bewick's Swans were in full view. Unfortunately they weren't as close as the eight Whoopers but nevertheless great to see, especially as there are so few in the UK this winter...
Phwoarrr...
Phone-scoped Bewick's showing the bill pattern
I know they're naff pics but I just can't help posting them!
So that's the swans dealt with, but this place was about so much more! I was absolutely staggered by the sheer numbers of wildfowl present, really jaw-dropping. There were easily 8-10,000 Wigeon spread around, along with c500-800 Pintail, a thousand or so Teal, c250 Shoveler and a few Gadwall. I can tell you this is quite something when you are used to looking at no more than 300 Wigeon day in day out!
So many ducks!
This spectacle really opened my eyes. I am such a dedicated patch birder, and have been for so long now, that the bird scene here completely sculptures my birding. Checking a flock of 300 Wigeon say two or three times a week is my birding, I scan through them once or twice, nothing rare, job done. Flipping heck at Southlake Moor you could scan the Wigeon daily for a month and still not find a lurking American Wigeon!
And that's got me thinking, does this mean I have become a lazy birder? Am I so settled in a birding routine that I am no longer (to quote the very sadly recently departed Martin Garner) 'pushing the boundaries', or my boundaries anyway...
I think I need to embark on a few more off patch forays...
I can see the headlines now; "Hospital beds full as Axe Birding blog readers all injure themselves falling off their chairs due to shock of new blog posts on four consecutive days - the first time in years!". Simple reason is because I've had the week off work, I've got a bit more time to put finger to keypad - oh and I've actually seen some birds!
This morning I spent a few hours off patch, which was nice as I saw these...
I was there about two and a half hours, and in that time had about eight sightings of at least three of these beautiful Lesser-spotted Woodpeckers. I saw three birds on two separate occasions (may have even been four on the second time), with two birds on one occasions and several sightings of single birds.
They really are amazing birds that have an incredible ability of just melting into the canopy. To me it looked like a settled pair, with a second 'outsider' male. Both times the second male flew in, all three birds went berserk, flying around all over the place, wing flicking, calling, etc. But as soon as the second male flew off, the pair just disappeared into nothing but bare branches! I've also never really realised how quiet their drumming is, the first time I heard it this morning I thought I had a lot of walking to do as it sounded a long way off, but the bird drumming was actually in the tree right next to me! Nothing like the echoy tones of a drumming Great-spot. Talking of Great-spotted, I had a couple of these and a Green Woody here too - the full suit of UK Woodpeckers from one spot.
I did spend a bit of time out on patch today, but all was looking a bit grim with no summer migrants to be seen despite visiting Beer Head, Black Hole Marsh, Colyford Common, Colyford Marsh and the Estuary this afternoon. But on my last stop of the day at Bridge Marsh I was delighted to spy two Little Ringed Plovers feeding on the edge of the main scrape. Apologies for the shockingly poor unpostable pic, but it does show both of them...
Today I have inadvertently taken three quite good 'Mystery bird photos'...
Name those birds...
Well I suppose they are actually quite obvious!
After a quick scoot around the patch soon after dawn, I embarked on a bit of a twitch!
It took me quite a while to find the damn bird, but there were plenty of other bits and pieces to look at at Smeatharpe Airfield; 35+ Golden Plover, Snipe, good numbers of Fieldfare, Redwing and Skylark.
I took me about an hour to find the Great Grey Shrike, I watched it for a few minutes, took a couple of photos, then it dropped down and simply disappeared! And yes, that was the time that 'Mystery bird photo one' was taken! Here was the preceding photo...
There's nothing better than a Great Grey Shrike on a freezing cold winter's morning
I was back on patch at half 11ish, but a sweep of the Estuary revealed little.
Another look around mid afternoon showed two Ruff on Bridge Marsh (yes, that's 'Mystery bird photo three!') and eight adult Med Gulls on the Estuary. One of the Meds was white-ringed, but too distant to read, and several were supporting half decent hoods - like this one...
Phwoar!! There are few gulls sexier than a summer plumaged Med!
And yes, the last photo pictures the same bird as featured in 'Mystery bird photo two!'.
