My Favourite!

Dropped my car off at the local garage this morning - then proceeded to check some of the less visited parts of the patch on foot.

I had a fine reward with a cracking Firecrest in bushes alongside Axmouth Harbour. It was very vocal - calling almost constantly - which made following it a lot easier! There were lots of Skylarks and Siskins passing over too, but I actually saw surprisingly few. I think they were going over very high in the clear skies.

I got my car back at 1pm, and spent the next hour out.

On the flood opposite Axmouth FC there were two larger Pipits; one is clearly a bog-standard Water Pipit (seen by Brett earlier in the day). The other though is a tricky one, although it has white outers, nice pale wing bars and pale-looking legs, over all it just looks too 'dirty'. The jury is still out on it, but I reckon it could be a littoralis. I want to see it in better light really.

Lower Bruckland Ponds didn't produce a Yellow-browed Warbler, but it did produce a drake Pochard! Now for some reason Brett didn't seem very interested in twitching this patch goodie - can't think why! I thought it certainly warranted a photo...

Nice!

Am pleased that the Sandpiper is still gracing us - and would like to thank everyone for their congratulation messages! I (and I'm sure many other people) would very much like to thank Fraser and Doug for doing such a fantastic job in wardening the site....and what a cracking site it is :-)

WOOP WOOP!

YIPEEEEEE! The Solitary Sand stayed the night has been showing well all day today. I just hope it stays another week for Gav.....come on!!!!!

After I finished work at midday I had a wander down myself. I didn't take any photos of the bird - but it looked stunning in the afternoon sunlight. Soon there will be some cracking shots of it on the net though - there were plenty of big lenses pointing at it.

I did take a few photos of other things though...

The excitement of a twitch on patch is second to none!!

The only other birdie news I have is of a nice Ruff on the (still amazing looking) scrape opposite Axmouth FC. James Mc saw this bird here yesterday too.

Why Not....

I have had a very tiring few days!

On Friday night at half ten I drove from Seaton to Plymouth, and was up for 8am the following morning. I stayed in Plymouth until half 11 on Saturday night, then drove back to Seaton and got in to bed at 1am. At 6am this morning I was awake for work at 7. Finished work at half 4 this afternoon and came home for a relaxing night... or so I was hoping for......

I really did feel like total crap, and was ready for a very VERY early night - I have work again at 6:30am! But it was such a beautiful evening I just HAD to go out! Why not....

At 18:12 I wandered down to Black Hole Marsh to see if the Curlew Sandpiper and three Little Stints were there from earlier. The first bird I saw was a Sandpiper which had walked around the corner into view....

Hmmmm....something didn't like right!!! There wasn't a Green Sand in sight - and this bird just wouldn't flash its arse or call! Not to help matters it was getting dark - rapidly!

At about twenty past I'd seen enough to put the news out locally of a 'probable Solitary Sand'.

At about half past, as the first local arrived (Ian Mc) two Green Sands flew in and joined it! SH*T THE BED - it IS a Solitary Sand!!!! It just looked so obvious now!

Once all the avaliable locals had arrived (five of us in total), I felt we NEEDED to see its rump for the BBRC, just in case it did/does do a bunk over night - so i 'encouraged' it to fly, which was bloody hard work! It flew about ten feet and showed what we thought it would :-)

We continued watching the bird until it was literally pitch black, it was feeding happily roughly in the same spot as where I first found it.

All directions are on the Devon Bird News Blog, as are a couple of crappy photos and a rubbish video clip. I'll post the pics here too though, plus one more...

EPIC!!!!

This is the moment us patch birders wake up for....or in my case today - don't go to sleep for! Result!!! I just hope the currently off patch - patch birders get back before it goes.... PLEASE STAY BIRD!!!