That's More Like It!

As the date gets nearer to the 13th (mini-Waite due date!) I am trying to get as much sleep as possible, so this morning with no wind to tempt me out I thought I'd sleep in. So pleased I didn't in the end though!

Dan J from Sidmouth texted me at about 06:20 to say he'd just had two distant Skua sp. east. Knowing there were at least two skuas in the bay was more than enough to get me up! 06:50 - 07:50 from the Spot On Kiosk produced (flew east unless stated);

11 Common Scoter 

2 Great Northern Diver (see below!)

7 Manx Shearwater

2 Balearic Shearwater (east with 4 Kitts at 07:38)

1 Pomarine Skua (GET IN!!!!)

4 Kittiwake

Three major talking points in the above list. And of course I'll start with the Pom. After five Arctic and two Great Skuas this spring, what a joy to finally see a Pom. Always a rare bird here. It was a stonking fully spooned pale-phased adult, and flew east at 07:10. I've had them closer but it was close enough to see all plumage details and that impressive spoon!  It was nice to watch it chase a Manxie around for half a minute or so too, always amazes me how different a skuas casual migrating flight action is compared with their flight action when in full chase mode, and how quickly they switch modes.

The Balearic Shearwaters were a real surprise, a proper rare spring bird on the patch, and I'd say Devon. It's usually mid summer onward when they appear - but sometimes we don't get many at all in the whole year.  However by a long long way the smartest bird(s) of the watch were the two Great Northern Divers. OH MY WORD.  Annually we see GND's flying west past here in spring, often they are in summer plumage but usually are distant. Not only were today's two both in full summer plumage, but they were also both settled on the water not that far out. Each time I scanned over them I couldn't help myself from stopping and having another gawp - incredible patterns and colours on these amazing plumaged birds. I've no pics I'm afraid as the sea was too lumpy, but flipping heck I won't forget these two beasts for a while. Absolutely stunning birds. And they stayed there for the whole hour.

After the sea watch a quick tour of the valley sites showed a singing Willow Warbler on the Borrow Pit (my first on patch this month!) and on Black Hole Marsh our fourth Avocet of the spring. It was rather oddly upended like a feeding duck so this is the only photo you are getting...

I promise that is an Avocet!

Before today I've done well missing patch year ticks recently. Last night Sidmouth Clive had a Cuckoo fly towards Seaton Marshes from Black Hole Marsh, but there was no further sign of it. And on Tuesday a Ring-necked Parakeet was seen by three different people in three different places in Axmouth during the course of the day. Ok I know that's a bit plastic but for me it would be not only a year tick, but a full fat patch tick too! That's presuming it didn't have any dodgy rings or any other anomalies.

It's been so nice to see the local breeding birds doing so well in this pleasant weather. I am seeing lots of fledglings about, and many adult birds being busy...

Song Thrush Black Hole Marsh

Sedge Warbler Black Hole Marsh

And I keep seeing Hares up Axe Cliff, with two up there on Tuesday morning...

A Hare up close for a change!

And I think that's about it for this post. Well except for the breaking news from the bookmakers that the odds have been slashed for baby Waite being named Pomarine...

Beer Head

Enjoyed another good morning with Peter up Beer Head this morning.  It was windier than I expected, which really affected what is usually my most successful mist net (it was like a sail on a boat!), but thankfully the second net is in a more sheltered location.

There was a different 'feel' to the session, with the first hour or so being all about thrushes, a family of birds I don't usually catch many of at this site.  Smaller birds started dropping in to the mist nets once it had warmed up a little, which took a while!

In about four hours we caught 32 new birds, as follows:

9 Blackbird
2 Song Thrush
1 Redwing (my first for the site - what a cracker!)
1 Blackcap
6 Chiffchaff
11 Goldcrest
1 Great Tit
1 Chaffinch

What a gorgeous bird.

The first Redwing I've handled for years!

Two male Blackbirds, a bird born this year (age code 3) on the left and an adult (age code 4) on the right.

Same as above.

As well as the 32 birds ringed, we re-caught three that I had already ringed.  One was a resident Robin (there aren't many resident birds up here) and interestingly the other two were Goldcrests, one that was ringed on 8th Oct and the other on 14th Oct.  So some of these migrants are lingering and not just going straight though.

We very nearly caught a Woodcock too!  As we were walking up to one of the nets about an hour and a half into the session, completely unexpectedly one took off about 3 meters from the net but flew the wrong way. If only we had walked in from behind it we could well have ringed a Woodcock this morning - now that would have been nuts!  This is actually the first Woodcock I've ever seen at Beer Head, a rare bird for the site.

Overhead passage was quieter than I expected, although four low flying Golden Plover were nice to see.  Didn't see much more in the bushes either, and no further sign of the Dartford Warbler that Ian M saw.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow....

On Friday morning I woke up to this....

Lots of snow falling

I then spent Saturday in Taunton, being amazed at how much snow there actually was! Little did I know what was around the corner...

This morning, within two hours (between 06:30-08:30) a colossal amount of snow fell. All the main roads have been impassable, at work we haven't have any deliveries all day, no post, etc...so proper snow!

I've lived here 19 years and I've not seen it like this before....

Proper deep snow!

Today wasn't going to be a birding day, but the action in and over the garden has kept me glued!

Had one garden tick today - a bit of a good one too! At 9am five Woodlark flew north west over the back garden. I was quite surprised by this as there didn't seem to be as many Skylarks on the move as there had been the previous couple of days. A few Snipe and stacks of thrushes were also noted going over.

In the actual garden, well it has been mayhem!!!

Have had five species of the thrush, the highlight being the Mistle Thrush that landed on the front lawn for all of three seconds before flying away - so no pics of him. There's plenty of Redwing pics though...

There were always 10-20 in the garden, but birds were continually flying off and being replaced by 'new' ones

At least six Song Thrushes also seen...

Song Thrush and Redwing

And a few Fieldfare...

These always stayed high in the berry trees though

Other non-thrush bird included up to four Blackcap...

Three of them looking like this one

Four Bullfinch....

Three of them looking like this

Two Pied Wags, a heap of Long-tailed Tits and a female-type Black Redstart.

Just outside the garden, there were bucket loads of thrushes....thousands of them! Most thawed bits of road/verge had a Meadow Pipit or two, and a few houses down a male Black Redstart sat up proud...


And then began feeding on the berry's of some ornamental palm tree like thing...

Check out the ice on his feet!

But, although the birding has been just incredible, I feel sooooo sorry for them all. I just hope this doesn't last long. In the mean time - please keep feeding your garden birds!

Counting Coots

Although it is noticeable milder this morning, it wasn't yesterday morning! In fact, for the first time since this cold weather descended upon us, yesterday morning there was actually ice on the river...

Not a common sight at all!

It is was good day for Coot yesterday; I'm pretty sure I smashed the previous highest day count for the patch. Four at Lower Bruckland Ponds and eight on the Estuary weren't anything special or unexpected, but the flock of 18 on the sea were...

Making a total of exactly 30 Coot!

There was a drake Pochard attached to this Coot flock (though it's nearly entirely hidden in the above photo), and a gorgeous pair of Goosanders flew west, including the first adult male I've seen during this cold snap. Two Eider and five Common Scoter were off Seaton Hole, with a further 14 Common Scoters off Branscombe.

To complete yesterday's sightings; 12 Gadwall were on the river (a flock of 11 and one with the Wigeon), the Yellow Wagtail was still at Colyford WTW and four Chiffchaffs were at Branscombe WTW.

This morning, a look over the sea was again eventful. Another two Goosanders flew west, and landed on the sea near the Chine Cafe (both female-types), a immature drake Eider flew in from the south, then east (with the two still off Seaton Hole with five Common Scoters) and best of all, an immature Velvet Scoter was settled on the sea with three female Common Scoters just to the east. I presume the same bird I found last week?

A quick look up the river valley showed nothing unusual, but at least 1,020 Wigeon were feeding on Colyford Marsh, here's some of them...

This was the densest part of the three flocks

Closer to home, in fact AT home, the garden has been full of birds during the cold weather. Song Thrushes are very scarce here, but we've had at least three hanging about lately...

...always quite skittish though, so this was a hard photo to get!

And most days at least two Blackcaps can be seen, though there were four (three females and a male) on Tuesday morning...

Eyeing up that apple core

And as I write this there's a flock of six Redwing feeding in our berry tree - just a pity there's no Waxwings in with them!!

Lastly, the colour-ringed Med Gull I saw a few days ago; White 3N93. Well I knew I'd seen this bird before, and I had - on the 3rd of Feb this year! (see HERE). Between that sighting and this sighting there's been no other reports of him/her.

There'll be no more birding for me over the next few days, so roll on next week..... Oh, but just before I do go, anyone know who saw the 5+ Bewick's Swans at Colyford Common on 8/12/10!??