Salty Mandarins

A good storm often produces an oddity or two, whatever the time of year, but Tim Wright took that to a whole 'nother level at about 3pm this afternoon  Not so much on rarity-value, just pure whackiness...

Two drake and a female Mandarin

Yes, that's three Mandarin sat on the sea!!  There's not been a Mandarin anywhere on patch since July 2013, prior to this I've seen four or five here, but none - as you'd expect - on or over the sea. What a bizarre record, and thanks for the message Tim. I would love to know where they woke up this morning!?

They weren't that far out, but the choppy seas didn't help with photography

And here's a 30 second video...

60 Black-tailed and the Bar-tailed Godwit, five Dunlin, 90+ Common and 14 Lesser Black-backed Gulls were on the Estuary this afternoon, but I couldn't manage anything better. I've still not seen a summer migrant yet, which in an average year I would expect, but this year I feel a bit cheated.

All At Sea

Yesterday saw a good shake up in the weather, with a front arriving from the south overnight Tuesday/Wednesday producing strong winds and heavy rain. There was a bit too much rain on Wednesday morning for decent sea watching, but I gave it a go anyway! 07:40 - 08:40 from Spot On was wet and at times quiet, but another twenty minute watch from 09:45 with Phil showed a bit more was on the move once the worst weather had gone through. By mid morning the wind turned and began blowing from the north west which put a stop to any movement.  My totals from both watches came to (flew west unless stated);

2 Great Northern Diver

1 Arctic Skua (dark-phased low west at 08:23)

41 Manx Shearwater

26 Kittiwake

20+ Sandwich Tern (6 west, 14+ fishing close in)

8 Common Tern (all looked like Commons to me anyway!)

12 Auk sp.

2 Ringed Plover (on the beach then flew west)

1 Dunlin (on the beach then flew west)

9 Sanderling (seven on the beach with the above two species, then all flew west joined by two more)

3 Whimbrel

A bit of rain and wind in early May always seems to drop Sanderling on Seaton Beach, my thanks to Phil for texting me about these. The seven settled birds ranged in plumage from full summer to just moulting out of winter wear...

Well concealed among the pebbles!

Enjoying a well earned rest

Wednesday wasn't a complete wash out though and the sun came out mid morning. A dog walk around the back lanes of Axmouth showed several singing male Common Whitethroat and a smart and fairly showy Lesser Whitethroat. I will keep an eye on it as it's a place I've never had one before. Lesser Whitethroats actually seem to be increasing in our bit of Devon over recent years, going against the grain of virtually every other migrant species!

Sadly I missed what was probably the best spring fall of long-distance migrants for several years on Sunday due to work, and it was only Kev who managed to get up to Beer Head and other sites around Beer. During the day he notched up six Redstarts, ten Whitethroats, four Spotted Flycatchers and a Garden Warbler, as well as excellent numbers of Willow Warblers constantly passing through. Who knows what else would have been discovered if more people were able to get out on the day, sadly Clive and Ian Mc were both away and Phil and I were working.

Although I missed all the passerines on Sunday, I was fortunate to luck in on a couple of Red Kites that flew low west over Seaton in the early evening, causing mayhem among the gulls. Tim White had seen them arrive from the east and I just happened to be driving through town when I noticed all the commotion. They really were low, not that you can tell that from my photos, but they did gain height again as the headed off west.

Amazingly my first Red Kite of the year!

Red Kite with the light sadly behind it!

Not got much else to tell really despite this being my first blog post for a week. There are more Reed and Sedge Warblers in now, and Friday 27th saw a truly impressive arrival of Swallows with flock after flock arriving low over the beach. Always so thrilling to see active migration like this. That evening Phil saw an Osprey, or maybe two, fishing on the Estuary - like so many species it's been a poor spring for them.

Busy Bridge Marsh

The last few days have seen excellent numbers of wildfowl and waders feeding on Bridge Marsh, well over a thousand birds. My best counts have been 650 Lapwing, 85 Curlew, 79 Black-tailed Godwit, 290 Wigeon and 160 Teal. Really superb birding and thoroughly enjoyable, just a pity I've not been about to pull a rare out of the mix. Well that's apart from the wintering Glossy Ibis, which hasn't always proved easy to catch up with since its arrival. He/she joined the masses of birds on Bridge Marsh this morning...

Earlier in the day it was nice to finally catch up with the Seaton Hole male Black Redstart, which was actually on the houses near where the cars park at the top of the slope and not down on the beach.  A brief look out to sea showed it to be fairly quiet, although a lone Brent Goose flew west.  

To finish, another sunset shot I'm afraid, taken this evening from Seaton Beach. The tip of Beer Head looked to be glowing thanks to the angle we were viewing from...

Juvenile Yellow-legged Gull

The annual arrival of juvenile Yellow-legged Gulls in to the UK was later than usual this year, and I have been even further behind.  For a couple of weeks small numbers have been seen along the south coast of Devon, but for me whenever I've had chance to look at gull flocks I've drawn a blank.  Thankfully though I broke my duck in style this morning with an absolute brute of a bird on Seaton Beach at 8am...

Just look at that!  Such a bruiser it looked almost Great Black-backed Gull-like at times!

An especially big billed individual!

Right in the middle of the shot, look how pale headed it looked compared to the juv Herring Gulls to the right.

Sadly I managed to completely fluff the flight shot, but it still shows the tail well - neat black trailing edge to a mostly white tail.

And hopefully these pointers will help the non-larid lovers among my readers to understand why this is identifiable as a juvenile Yellow-legged Gull...

Yellow-legged Gull (YLG) to the left, Herring Gull (HG) to the right.

1 - Bill size and shape is vastly different, especially with this brute of a YLG!

2 - YLG shows a much squarer head with a much paler ground colour which gives them a masked appearance around the eye. Be careful as you do get paler HG, which is why I can't stress enough how important it is to use more than one feature to ID a juv YLG.

3 - The scapulars, coverts and mantle feathers have narrower paler edges on YLG with HG showing more notching too. I often find the centers of these feathers browner in YLG and blacker in HG.

4 - Both species have mostly solidly dark tertials, but HG show more pale notching and barring around the edges, whereas YLG tend to have neat and narrow pale edges with fewer or no notches.

Although there are more differences (especially in flight, look at that flight shot again), I'd say these four points along with overall size (YLG being larger and longer winged than HG with longer paler legs) are the most striking features when I come across a settled juvenile YLG.

I hope you have found this useful and good luck in finding your own :-)

A Damp Day

I've not had any time for birding today, but a wet and windy dog walk along the beach first thing gave me the chance to video my first sea birds.  I've been really excited about the potential of getting some of my sea bird sightings on video, so I was keen to see how my camcorder would perform with distant and constantly moving shapes.

I was stood down by the breaking waves getting completely and utterly soaked by the driving rain when I noticed two Common Terns slowly making their way east just offshore, perfect subjects!  You will have to forgive the shakiness when I crank up the zoom but I wanted to see what the quality was like on full whack. Uploading to YouTube has affected this somewhat, but I'm still pleased with it.  Just waiting for the summer plumaged White-winged Black Tern now!

Not A Nice Post To Write...

The stormy winter months haven't just been devastating for many people in the UK, but they have been for our seabirds too.

An arcitle on BirdGuides reveals that a survey during the weekend of 22/23rd February along the coast of the Bay of Biscay, France, showed 21,341 dead birds (mostly Puffins). On top of this, 2,784 ill birds were taken into care and fisherman were still reporting seeing carpets of dead birds floating at sea. Such disturbing news.

Along the Devon coast, Kev Rylands of the RSPB has said around 200 dead birds have been found. I know that south Dorset, particularly Chesil Cove, have had large numbers too, and Cornwall.  Wales is in the same boat now also and I presume Ireland is as well.  The true number of sea bird that have died, considering these numbers, and the fact most are probably still floating at sea, is scary. Must be around or above 100,000 birds surely?

Seaton beach sadly has had its share of this. Local birder Alan Bibby has found most of the birds, but I've been down a few times also keeping an eye on things.  Personally I've seen 16 dead birds; 10 Guillemot, 3 Razorbill, 1 Kittiwake, 1 Great Skua and 1 Manx Shearwater.  I know of a further four dead birds that have been found, including a Puffin. This selection shows how many different species have been affected.

And now, I'm afraid, some pictures...

Sadly many of the Guillemots, like this one, were in pristine summer plumage and looked in good shape (except for being dead obviously!).

A Razorbill.

A dead adult Kittiwake, this was the only bird I've seen with obvious oil.

This I found the saddest sight. Great Skua's are the bullies of the sea, a proper dominate pirate species. Not this one anymore.

A head shot of the Great Skua, such a powerdul bird.

A Manx Shearwater (which is still in my back garden!) - we usually see these gracefully gliding just above the waves.

Hopefully my next blog post will be a bit more positive...