Lyme Regis

An enjoyable family wander around Lyme Regis this afternoon revealed the lingering immature drake Eider distantly off the Cobb...

And 13 Purple Sandpiper feeding along the shoreline off the eastern end of the sea front...

Just a pity the sun wasn't out!

In Seach Of The Purple One (Part Two)

Last Thursday saw an early afternoon low tide, and calm weather conditions. This, coupled with an apparent increase in Purple Sandpiper numbers at our two nearest sites (Sidmouth and Lyme Regis) within the last week, encouraged me to try again and walk the rocks on the beach east of Axmouth Harbour.  

Looks so right!

It all looked so perfect. So much exposed rock covered with weeds, and I saw more wading birds than I ever have before; 47 Curlew and 11 Oystercatcher, plus three Little Egrets...

A good Purp-carrying species

And for a few seconds I thought I'd done it.  I'd very nearly got to the point that I turn back, and three more Oystercatchers lifted off from a large, gently sloping and smooth surfaced rock.  As I got closer my eyes caught sight of two small grey birds shuffling about on the weed - Purple Sands!!  It took probably just over a second for my binoculars to get to my eyes, but in this short space of time I was already celebrating - all the effort I have put in had finally come good. Local birders would be queueing up to buy me drinks at the pub and my name would go down in history as the birder that finally got Purple Sandpiper on the Axe patch list.  What an amazing feeling it was. But then my binoculars got to my eyes...

Rock Pipits.

I immediately felt very very flat. All the elation, even though it was fake, evaporated into thin air in an instant.

Isn't it funny that when you are so so focused on one particular species, your brain can so easily come to a premature and wrong conclusion without any real thought process. Thankfully there was no one with me, otherwise I could have looked like a right plank if I'd open my mouth before the bins came up.

On the plus side, I managed to see a very distant Red Kite during the boring walk back, thanks to a phone call from Bun - he had just seen it fly north east over Beer.

In Search Of The Purple One

Here's a map...

You will notice two different types of symbols on this map of the East Devon/West Dorset coast.

The red lines represent the coastal boundaries of our patch, between the two is a distance of 10km which is quite a lot of coastline.

The blue dots represent where Purple Sandpipers are currently over wintering.  Do you notice a pattern?  I certainly do. Either side of our patch and you will undoubtedly see a Purple Sandpiper even if you spend the day looking through your binoculars backwards, but within our patch, no dots, no Purps. Not only aren't there any Purple Sandpipers wintering with us this year, but there are actually no records of Purple Sandpiper on the patch EVER!  I think we all know there probably have been Purple Sands here before, surely some have at least flown past?  But no one has seen any and that's what counts...

Anyway, one of my new years resolutions was to resolve this problem, and get Purple Sandpiper on the patch list.  For me the best chance has got to be the coastline east of the river mouth at Axmouth.  I tried for the second time this year earlier today, although the tide didn't go down as much as usual so far fewer rocks were exposed, the potential was still there...

Yet again though I drew a blank. And that's despite the extra help from four more legs...

We do have other bits of Purple Sandpiper-looking coastline, Seaton Hole for example, and around Beer Head.  But what I think makes these particular rocks the most likely option is that this is the only part of our rocky shoreline that regularly has wading birds on, even on today's few exposed rocks were two Oystercatchers and two Curlew.  It's not many I know, but in my experience birds attract birds - even if it is just four!

Knowing how unpredictable this birding game can be, when we do finally get a Purple Sand here it will probably be in with a flock of Dunlin feeding on Black Hole Marsh!  

Finally, sorry this hasn't come sooner, but Happy New folks. I really hope 2016 is a good and prosperous year for you all....not to mention bird-filled of course!