Caspian Gull and Spotted Crake

Won't have much birding time from now til the end of the month, so am making the most of any time I do find...

Yesterday with all that rain, and a middayish low tide, I thought the Estuary would be worth a quick look early afternoon - in the end it wasn't a 'quick' look at all!  The moment I drove over the bridge at the bottom end of the Estuary things looked promising as I could see lots of black...

Great Black-backed Gulls galore

Lots of Black-backed Gulls (whether they're Great or Lesser) is always a good sign, and is usually the case when there's strong wind and rain. They're birds that have come in from offshore to shelter from the weather, and there's always the possibility they've bought something else in with them. I thought a Yellow-legged was on the cards, but I really wasn't expecting to net Devon's first September Caspian Gull!

When the weather is as foul as it was yesterday, I tend to just go through the gulls with my bins from the car until I reach Coronation Corner, when the scope's needed to check birds to the north. It was whilst checking the second flock of gulls I'd come to when this made me jump out of the car and grab my scope...

The bird asleep behind the female Mallard

I didn't really know why this bird got me so excited so quickly with just this view, but looking at this pics it's the white head, neck and breast, with neat streaking around the rear of the neck, and the mostly dark greater coverts that contrasted with the rest of the coverts, scapulars and mantle feathers.

So the scope came out, but I didn't learn much more about the identity of this bird. I did learn a bit about its age though, and was starting to think it was probably a first-summer/second-winter bird as it just didn't look young and fresh enough to be a first-winter, and those broad white tips to the tertials weren't right for a 1cy bird.  I had to wait about five minutes before a male Mallard (the one pictured behind the bird in the above photo) walked past it and woke it up, and out popped exactly what I wanted to see...

Notice the typical Caspian-stance with a bulge at the top of the neck

Looking very cheesed off in the heavy rain!

Gav soon arrived and after some discussions (and seeing the bill well, which had lots of pale on it) we decided it was indeed a second calender year bird, still mostly in first-summer plumage.  In my mid I expected a second-calender year Casp in mid Sept to be more like a second-winter bird showing far more pale grey in the scaps and mantle, but apparently this is fine. To be honest I usually do my best to avoid first-summer large gulls. All other ages I will happily have a go at - but there is just so much variation in this age group of all the large gull species it's a nightmare. So I'm pleased this bird screamed Caspian first and foremost regardless of its age!

Other pro-Caspian features included the long tibia (which you can make out on the above photo), and the general size of the bird. It wasn't the biggest Casp I've seen, being clearly smaller than the Great Black-backed Gulls, but it was still significantly larger and heavier in the body than all the surrounding Herring Gulls. We had a brief view of its upperwing which looked spot on for Casp, as was a glimpse of a very white underwing and a very white tail with no black spots just a neat black tail bar. This is all depicted on Gav's blog as he managed a shot of it as it flew off, see HERE.

If all this gull talk is making you sleepy, hopefully this will wake you up...

Oh yes....

Half way through writing this post, I got a call from Dad saying someones got a Spotted Crake in front of the Field Studies Base on Stafford Marsh. I sent the texts out (I thought to everyone - sorry again Gav) and headed straight down there. It was Ian Hunt (a member of the Axe Estuary Ringing Group) who'd seen it, he saw it well at about midday. Thankfully at about 12:50 it did the decent thing and showed for five minutes in exactly the spot Ian had seen it. What a superb patch year tick - two in two days! And what a superb bird too - nothing like that drab almost spot-less dark blob last year, a really charismatic little thing poking around the juncus looking rare...

Craketastic!

Isn't it funny how quickly an autumn can go from being average to good....

Pec At Last

After going out every day for the last month or so thinking 'we've got to get a Pec today', finally yesterday was the day!  It was found by Sue Smith just before I went to work, so I didn't get chance to see it until early afternoon today.  During a very heavy downpour... 

And the worst photo of the year away goes to....me!

It is actually a very well marked and stunning bird.  For some proper photos of it, look here on Sue Smith's blog.  

You will also notice on Sue's blog the Spotted Crake, which amazingly reappeared yesterday after not being seen for pretty much an entire month! Now that is what you call elusive.

Well what else have I been up to today, well Beer Head was very enticing this morning.  It was also very wet!  Especially as numpty here had forgotten his wellies and coat!  It wasn't really raining until the end of my wander, but it was that foggy mizzle stuff that just gets you drenched without you noticing! 
  

It may have been wet, but it looked 'rare'

Although there wasn't much at all - it did 'feel' really good.  I suppose knowing a Red-throated Pipit had just turned up less than 14 miles away, with a Richard's Pipit yesterday even closer, helped my inspiration.

Hirundines and Meadow Pipits were the only species in any number, with the best bird of the visit being a corking male Redstart in the gorse hedge.  But save for a Wheatear, four Blackcap and two Chiffchaff grounded migrants were at a premium.

So two wet feet, wet clothes and wet everything else for a Redstart. Pants.

I haven't really done any birding at all before today and since my last blog post - although I have seen a few birds.

Friday evening I thought Jess would enjoy a nice walk around Seaton Marshes.  We all know this is a fantastic place to go for a nice romantic stroll...right!? Anyway, there was a surprise flock of Siskins on show. Not just one or two, but a splendid flock of 40, feeding in alders around the Borrow Pit and showing really well - a real surprise.  Apparently there was no sign of them the next morning, so I presume they were just passing through until the rain prompted them to stop off.   

Saturday was another non-birding day, but still produced a good bird.  We had spent the day at Yarak bird of prey centre, where I treated Jess to a half day of raptor flying and handling.  It was great fun, and how fitting that we should finish the day off with a (wild) rare raptor!  At 5pm just as we were turning onto the A3052 from the Honiton road, there was a stunning Red Kite flying low over the field beside the road.  Even from our view (naked eye and from a moving car) it was clearly a bright bird with a very red upper tail - far more so than than usual (presumed) first-summers I see down here in spring. 

To compete this post, just a couple more photos.  A crap one showing one of two Jays that were in the field besides the Farm Gate yesterday...

I just had to include a Jay photo seeing as we are currently experiencing a pretty incredible influx

And a better one of a Mute Swan swimming up the Axe late on Sunday...

Very tranquil

I think I'll spend a bit more time looking at the Swan photo above, as not finding a Yellow-browed on patch is starting to stress me out!  There's got to be one here somewhere...

A Patch Tick And A Patch Record Count?

I nipped out most days last week, mostly to Black Hole and Colyford Marsh. I didn't manage the rare I was hoping for, but there was always plenty to see. On Tuesday amongst 40+ each of Ringed Plover and Dunlin were two Little Stints, with one still present up to today. Two Greenshank were around from Wednesday with my highest Snipe count of the autumn so far (13) and Thursday saw a new Ruff in and an increase in duck numbers with two Wigeon and 120+ Teal. But it was the weekend that it all kicked off...

Whilst Jess and I were enjoying a day out in Somerset, a couple of texts informed me of a pager report of a Spotted Crake from the tower hide. Phil soon confirmed it when shown photos, and then spent most of the afternoon searching for it. His patience was rewarded late afternoon when it reappeared for a brief period - this is when he took these photos of it. When Phil texted the news out, we were 20 minutes from home, and after a bit of persuasion I made Black Hole Marsh our first destination! We spent about 20 minutes in the hide, but there was no sign so we headed home. About half an hour later it was seen again. Drat!

The following morning, the first two alarms I had set didn't wake me up, but thankfully alarm number three did! I got to the tower hide at 06:40...

A tranquil scene

It wasn't a tranquil scene inside the hide though where three of us were waiting and hoping for a patch lifer! Thankfully (as I didn't have much time) there wasn't that much waiting, and anxiety soon became jubilation! The Spotted Crake appeared at about 06:45 in almost exactly the same place Phil last saw it last night. We watched it for the next fifteen or twenty minutes as it made its way up river along the bottom of the bank below the salt marsh opposite the hide.

I have made an extra special effort to look for this species on patch this autumn, but have to say, this was one place I hadn't been looking. It really was in an odd place, although I guess if the food is there then why not! As Spotted Crakes go, it wasn't the most spotted (as Phil's photos show) - but I loved its buff bum! Totally different from a Water Rail, a really obvious and distinctive feature.

Gav and Karen both mentioned on their blogs that the light was so poor that they didn't even bother taking a photo. Not me...

A stunning and pin sharp photo of my first Spotted Crake on the Axe. Prints can be purchased.

The rest of Sunday I was at work, and Monday (today) I had put aside for a day of laptop work. The temptation to go out got too strong though mid morning when Martin Cade at Portland tweeted they had just had their 100th Balearic Shearwater of the day past the Bill!

I was down the sea front at 10:10, and by 11:40 had seen an impressive 71 Balearic Shearwaters! Some came through as loners, but most were in small flocks with the biggest single flock being of 13 birds, all flew west. I had a further 13 Shearwater sp. fly west at mega distance - too distant to ID. Otherwise there was not much else passing, just six Common Scoter and two Manxies.

Although 71 Balearics isn't a patch record, I am hoping other patch birders were watching the sea at different times and are able to add to this tally. I just wish I had started sea watching at dawn though - we could well have had over 200 through today I reckon. That would easily be a patch record!

Oh I see there's a Pec at Bowling Green, I wonder if I have enough time to check out Black Hole Marsh before Jess finishes work...