Balearic Bonanza and White Stork Update

This windy weather has brought some seabirds into Seaton Bay, and Ian Mc has done well to keep on top of them - sea watching every morning since the breeze began.

Yesterday morning he reported a fairly decent passage of Balearic Shearwaters prior to 9am, 64 west.  This encouraged me to try a mini-sea watch during my lunch break from Seaton Beach, and sure enough I soon saw a flock of six fly west.  I went back in the evening and was pleased to count 23 in just fifteen minutes from 18:45, giving us a day total of 93. Although that's with the sea not watched for most of the day, so I wouldn't be surprised if the actual day total was 150+.

This morning news came through from Ian Mc that there was an even heavier Balearic Shearwater passage going on, he and Mike counted a very impressive 155 west by 09:40. Today was also my birthday, and although I couldn't have made it out for this early watch, when Jess asked me what I wanted to do today my answer was simple.... sea watch!  I watched 10:15 - 12:15, adding another 26 Balearic Shearwaters to the tally, plus five Kittiwake, three Auk sp and a Sandwich Tern. Ian saw another seven Balearics during a mid afternoon watch, and I added a further three this evening during a one hour watch from 17:30, plus a first-winter Common Gull and another Kittiwake.  So adding all these together that's 191 Balearic Shearwaters west past Seaton today, by a million miles our highest ever day count! In fact as far as I can recall this is our first ever three figure, with my previous highest being 71 on 10/9/12. In recent years there's been no decent counts of Balearics here at all, this species seems to be venturing into our part of Lyme Bay far less frequently.  Thanks Ian and Mike for being so helpful with times and counts today, really useful as it's enabled us to work together to get as much coverage on the sea as possible.

Now for an update on the Lyme Regis/Seaton White Stork, and the Sidmouth one which amazingly wasn't the same as ours! The Lyme/Seaton bird (unringed with a tracker and snipped primary tips) was photographed flying over Prawle Point by Pat Mayer on the 19th (the day after it was here), whilst another White Stork bearing a small black ring was stood on the roof of Lidl's in Sidmouth!

Anyway on the morning of 20th I was surprised to get a message from Wild Zoological Park in Bobbington, near Wolverhampton.  Both White Storks were theirs - free-flying display birds that had been whisked away by a thermal the previous day (17th).  And here's a snap of them together...

(c) Wild Zoological

They have names of course, Victor and Violet, and the reason Violet was ring-less was because she came to the zoo with foot and leg problems. Victor is back home now, he flew down from Lidl's roof when he saw his 'keeper', but Violet is still on the loose.  If you see her please let me or the zoo know, she could still be in the South Hams area.

A Frosty Morning and Another Patch Hawfinch

What a stunningly beautiful morning, with the temperature gauge showing -4 when I stepped out the front door pre-sunrise. I've been feeling left out with all the snow photos coming in from north and east of us, but this morning helped quash some of this jealousy...

I saw quite a few bits and bobs too, including this Mink. This species always makes me feel a bit odd when I see it. I don't see many, but when I do I feel like I should be excited, but then remember the havoc they cause...

On the bird front, just by where the Mink was a flighty Water Pipit proved a bit of a surprise, as they have become a real scarce winter visitor here in most of the recent years. On the Estuary, four Shoveler were resting with Mallards...

There were plenty of Redwing and a few Fieldfare scattered about all over the place, along with a few more Skylark than usual. At Stafford Cross a brief look showed at least ten Brambling, but the main prize came during my journey back through Colyton.

Driving along Burnards Field Road (our Hawfinch hotspot) I caught a glimpse of the unique shape of a flying Hawfinch, heading low south parallel with the road. Thankfully it did the right thing and pitch down in a Field Maple (I think), which it fed in for the next ten minutes before I had to leave...

Hopefully this one will stick around!?

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

What's The Date?

Well we have just passed the mid September mark - and to be honest I simply can't believe it. After the wet summer we've experienced I always thought this was going to be a poor autumn, but my God September (so far) has proved dreadful!

Yesterday I led an outing for the East Devon Branch of the DBWPS around Beer Head. The bushes were quiet with just eight Blackcaps, three Chiffchaffs, a Whitethroat and a Goldcrest - and overhead was really quiet with just a couple of small Meadow Pipit and hirundine flocks over west. The highlight was easily a smart Whinchat by the coastguard look out, with about ten Wheatear.

This morning I've had a good look about the Estuary - and have finally seen the Curlew Sandpiper on Black Hole Marsh first found by Phil on Sunday morning. It was with 15 Dunlin, two Common Sands but little else. Other parts of the valley showed 37 Blackwits, seven Ringed Plover, three Greenshank (Colyford Marsh) and three Wigeon.

For some reason I photographed this Grey Wagtail - and looking at Karen's blog it must be something in the air at the moment!

We will get Citrine one day I'm sure...

Afterwards, and considering the tidal state (high) I though I'd count the roosting waders on the beach. It was dead easy - there were none! Overhead a few more Meadow Pipits were on the move though.

I don't think this weather is helping the birding situation at the moment, a bit of rain wouldn't go amiss - I have had enough of this...

..though I think I am the only person in Seaton who thinks this!