Axe Cliff Vis Migging and Harvest Moon

This blog post is a day late, but wow yesterday morning was so so enjoyable. Under beautiful blue skies and in the cool early morning autumn air it was exhilarating watching an impressive westward passage of passerines over Axe Cliff.

The view from my favourite vis migging watch point on patch

I usually count absolutely everything I see whilst vis migging, with a notebook in my pocket and clickers hanging off anything and everything they can. But yesterday morning due to the lack of wind, birds were flying past on countless different lines, which basically made counting impossible.  Although most the finches were passing just off the cliff edge, there were flocks of bird passing a quarter of a mile out to sea, and even more up to half an mile inland! There really were thousands of birds though, it was an epic watch with the most numerous species (in order) being; Meadow Pipit, Linnet, Chaffinch, alba Wagtail, Goldfinch, Skylark and Greenfinch. The species I counted included; 25 Siskin, 21 Reed Bunting, 6 Starling, 2 Grey Wagtail, 2 Dunnock and a Great Spotted Woodpecker.

The Great Spotted Woodpecker should really read ex Great Spotted Woodpecker, sad but it did give me one of my vis migging life highlights. I heard a swoosh, and out of no where an adult Peregrine powered into a Great Spotted Woodpecker (that I hadn't seen previously) right in front of my face! The noise of the Peregrine stoop was incredible, but then came the thud, followed by a squawk from the Woodpecker and then a explosion of black and white feathers that slowly floated to the ground.  Amazing. Sadly though both lost out. The Peregrine dropped its prey deep into the undergrowth and could not retrieve, and the Woodpecker would not have survived.

Although overhead was super busy, the fields at Axe Cliff were unusually quiet with a couple of Stonechat and a couple of briefly grounded Reed Buntings the best.

Stonechat

There was a bit more movement down the cliff edge though, with a trickle of Goldcrests and the odd Chiffchaff making their way west through the vegetation. Sadly no Yellow-browed Warblers.

A quick look over the valley afterwards produced a lovely juvenile Marsh Harrier over Colyford Marsh that circled up and rapidly flew off north.  Today, although  I haven't been out, a Cattle Egret and an adult Yellow-legged Gull have been seen from the Tower Hide, along with a report of a Bittern. Gripping.

In a rapid change of topic, I'm sure you all are aware by now that Thursday night of last week gave us a spectacular display of the Harvest Moon. I took a few photos at around 11pm, and as I missed the moon rise, took one of the 'moon set' at Axe Cliff in the morning. All photos with the ever impressive Nikon P900...

 

 

What I found even more impressive came the following night, with an almost full moon lighting up a sky full of clouds. Amazingly the following photo was taken from my back door at 10:30pm...

Fieldfare Revisited

Seeing as the Fieldfare I caught at Beer Head yesterday was the first Fieldfare I've caught as a C ringer, I thought it deserved a bit more attention on the blog.  They do seem to be pretty mist net-savvy birds, unlike the smaller species of thrush that are caught much easier.

Such a smart bird

I thought I'd go through how we came to age and sex this bird in some detail.  I have to be honest and say as I've handled so few Fieldfare I'd forgotten you could sex them, but a quick look at the ringers bible, Svensson, revealed that a closer look at the crown feathers should tell all...

And here's our bird...

What do you think?

Look particularly at the feather showing the largest amount of black towards the top of the pic, the black shows a concaved shape as it runs up the spine of the feather, matching Svensson's female example nicely.  So a girl it is.

Then there's the ageing, and I have to say I had a feeling it was a bird born this year (age code 3) as it came out of the net, because overall for a Fieldfare it just looked a bit dull.  I can't believe I've called a bird this stunning dull, but adults have a lovely rich chestnut brown mantle and scaps and lead grey head and rump - not this one though.  

The photo is pretty poor quality I'm afraid but it was pre-sunrise!

I've marked where the moult limit is, between the brown inner replaced adult-type greater coverts, and the old juvenile ones.  As well as the colour difference, you can see the difference in wear between the two, with the old juvenile coverts looking pretty knackered, whereas the adult ones are much smoother edged. That's simply because the juvenile feathers are probably three or four months old, but the new replaced adult ones a month old at most. 

And as with most birds, the tail is usually pretty helpful too when it comes to ageing...

I always find it hard to spread a tail nicely for photographs

Again look at the wear, if this was an adults tail it would be a month or so old as the bird would have undergone a complete moult before autumn migration - but it is pretty ragged and worn.  I'm sure other 3's show pointier tails than this, but I've found tail shape can vary a lot between individuals even if they are the same age and sex  The colour of the feathers, dull brownish grey, also fits with the bird being a young female, adult males have jet black tails.

Hope you've enjoyed this post, it's nice to get a bit technical now and then.  I'll finish it with a quick snap I took of a couple of Reed Buntings that I caught at Lower Bruckland Ponds earlier in the week, they were both 3's and conveniently one of each sex...

If only I had a third hand I could have got many more photos!

Still No Summer Migrants For Me

I saved most of today's birding time for this afternoon, as spring migrants often drop in as the day goes on when the weather is like this. But that didn't work for me today - despite visiting most places in the valley and Beer Head. 

It's been a cracking day weather wise, although bitterly cold first thing. The car thermometer read -3c during the drive over to Branscombe at 6:20am.

Taken from Branscombe at sun rise today - that's the Beer Head stacks

Heavy ground frost on Bridge Marsh early morning

Looking west from Beer Head early afternoon

Brascombe was very disappointing early on, because there was a horrible haze over the distant sea. I saw exactly zero Great Northern Divers! And nothing else either.  Later Ian M had 26 GND here, so they must have reappeared when the haze went.

I didn't really see anything of note during my few hours out this afternoon either. In fact my birdie highlight of the day occurred whilst I was inside...

We've seen Blackbirds, Blue Tits, Robins and Dunnocks on the new bird table in our garden - and of course the Wood Pigeons! So nothing too exciting. But I had quite a shock when I looked out mid morning today! Reed Bunting is on the garden list thanks to a fly by soon after we moved in, but I wasn't expecting to see one IN the garden eating our food...

A surprise Reed Bunting! A right cracker too.

A Long Awaited Birding Update

Time to get this 'birding blog' back up to date.... and to be honest that won't take much because besides the birding highlights I've already blogged about (including the 'plastic' White Stork!), I haven't seen all that much!

It has been a bit of an odd spring for us (again!). Very few 'good birding days' with lots of migrants about - but the potential has always been sky high with excellent rarity conditions and other sites turning up some cracking birds.

I was gutted to miss the monster flock of Pale-bellied Brents that flew from Portland Harbour to Dawlish Warren on 16th April. They did indeed fly past here, but while I was making a cup of tea - I had been waiting for them for two hours and at THAT moment felt my thirst needed dealing with! There were two small flocks of Brents sat on the sea totalling 36 birds, but that wasn't much compensation for a flock of 220+....

They were pale-bellied, honest!

With regard to the sea, for me this has been poor and very uninspiring this spring. I wish I had more time to look over it within the past week with these strong easterlies, but we have just lacked the much needed wet weather and blustery southerly winds. The odd Common Tern, a few small flocks of Manxies, a couple of Whimbrel and a Ringed Plover is all I can report.

Wader passage picked up at the start of this week, on Tuesday morning on Colyford Marsh there were: three Barwits (two in stonking summer plumage), six Blackwits, one Greenshank, two Ruff (females), nine Dunlin and a lovely Wood Sandpiper (my second of the spring - an Axe first for me!). Black Hole Marsh I have to say has been very disappointing - the water levels look ideal and have done now for several weeks, but birds just aren't interested in it!!

Now to passerine migrants, which as I've said already have been rather few and far between for me. I suppose my highlight was a Grasshopper Warbler which after reeling for a few minutes, showed really well for about a minute on the edge of a bramble bush at Black Hole Marsh.

I got a couple of year ticks on Wednesday morning this week, with a Yellow Wagtail over Colyford Common and a very vocal Lesser Whitethroat singing from bushes alongside the tramline adjacent to Coronation Corner. The Lesserthroat was still singing there this morning, and can be easily heard from the road alongside the Axe Estuary - when there are no passing cars that is!

Swifts are now frequent over the town - they seem to have taken their time coming in this year. I saw my first only three days ago!

The hedges between Axmouth and Rousdon are packed full of Whitethroats as ever, as are the reeds and shrubs in the valley of singing Sedge and Reed Warblers...

Sedge Warbler at Black Hole Marsh

And to finish this long awaited post, I just had to point my camera at this stonker...

A fine male Reed Bunting