A Flavour of August

As can be guessed by my subdued social media and blogging presence of late, it's been a busy few weeks! August is one of my favourite birding months of the year, so with a window of opportunity to get out towards the end of the month, I took it...

The birders who've been getting out to Beer Head this month have been well rewarded, with good numbers of common migrants (including a few Pied Flies) and a bonus Wryneck found by Bun on Wednesday 22nd.  I knew Beer Head would be busy with birders on Saturday morning, and following a glimpse of some decent vis mig during a dog walk on the edge of Colyton on Friday morning (five Tree Pipits and six Yellow Wags flew west in a ten minute period), and the fact Saturday morning saw a cloud-less dawn, Axe Cliff lured me...

The view over Seaton from Axe Cliff

I was up here 06:00-08:15 and saw; 

44 Yellow Wagtail (all west, including two groups of ten)

7 Tree Pipit (all singles, west)

1 Wheatear

1 Redstart (a cracking male)

3 Whitethroat

5 Willow Warbler

So not loads of birds by a long way, but it filled me with so much joy. The joy of autumn birding.

After this I headed down to Black Hole Marsh, another venue that has done well this month, although unlike Beer Head hasn't offered any real patch scarcities. The second Spotted Redshank of the month (with a third found today!) had been found the day before, and showed well around the Island Hide whilst I was there. Exceptionally well...

As you can see it's a juvenile - and an incredibly fresh one at that! I don't think I've ever seen one so young, rewind just a few weeks and it was probably stumbling around a damp Arctic taiga landscape peeping at its mother for food!  Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

Also on view were a couple of juvenile Little Ringed Plovers, c25 Dunlin, a Green Sand and a Greenshank.

Won't keep you waiting as long for the next blog post I promise!

Ruff Influx and Spoonbill

Today is the first day this week that I've managed any time out birding on patch. And that's with the whole week off work!  I managed two looks along the Estuary at mid tide (early morning and mid afternoon) and an early afternoon visit to Black Hole Marsh.  It was quite a fruitful day really with my totals being; 

42 Wigeon

50+ Teal

1 Spoonbill

7 Ringed Plover

2 Dunlin

1 Curlew Sandpiper

1 Little Stint

19 Ruff
1 Bar-tailed Godwit

2 Green Sandpiper

5 Common Sandpiper

1 Spotted Redshank

3 Greenshank

There's two stand outs on that list, Spoonbill and the exceptional Ruff count.  The Spoonbill was completely jammy as I saw it with my naked eye from the kitchen window flying south west away from Black Hole Marsh. Doubt soon crept in with such a brief and distant naked eye only view, but sure enough when I went down to Black Hole an hour later... "there was a Spoonbill here about an hour ago, didn't stay long though and flew off towards the Estuary". Presumably this was also the bird that dropped in briefly at Abbotsbury today.

As for the Ruff. Wow. Just wow. I had at least ten early morning on Black Hole Marsh, Dad had 14 mid morning and when I went down there early afternoon there was an incredible 19 on view. All were juveniles, and they were mostly hanging out in two flocks of seven with the rest loosely dotted around.  Not sure if this is a record count for the patch, I highly doubt it as 'back in the day' am sure Phil saw loads together at times, but my previous highest single count here is of 17. Can't remember the date off hand but it was in the winter during a very cold snap with lots of snow and ice around.

Six of the 19 Ruff on Black Hole Marsh this afternoon

The Spotted Redshank was the lingering juvenile on Colyford Scrape, and the Curlew Sandpiper (juv), Ringed Plovers and my highest count so far this autumn of Wigeon were all along the Estuary this morning.

In other news, it's that time of year when I need to edit my mini-bio to the right of this page, and increase my age by one. Though to be honest life is going by so quick it feels like I'm changing this at least three times a year!  At the age of 32, well, I can't even begin to explain just how happy and content I am with life, it would take pages and pages of text. But the source of it all is simple...

My world

Patch Update

This won't take long. Well it can't to be honest as I've got to go....

Our first Little Stint of the autumn appeared mid morning today on Black Hole Marsh, found by Clive (it wasn't there at 9am!). Also present two Ruff (a second juvenile joined the lingering bird yesterday morning - present at first on Colyford Marsh but now both are on Black Hole), the juvenile Curlew Sandpiper (for its fourth day) along with small numbers of Greenshank, Green and Common Sandpipers, 26 Dunlin and seven Ringed Plover.  The Spotted Redshank wasn't on Colyford Scrape this morning, but this is where it has been most days.

Here's some (poor) pics of the star birds...

Juvenile Little Stint - it remained distant but no doubting this one!

Dreadful pic of the juv Curlew Sandpiper

Ruff number one

Ruff number two - with a Snipe in the early morning sun on Colyford Marsh. Why wasn't it a Buff-breast!?

Juvenile Spotted Redshank

And that's that.  I'll leave you with the view from Colyford Common hide early yesterday, the sun rising over the Axe Valley on a lovely mid September morning...

Patch Year Ticks Harder To Find Than Four Leaf Clovers

It really is getting annoying now!  There are so many possibilities when it comes to potential patch year ticks at this time of year, so so so many. Several being highly possible too - I mean come on, how rare is Pochard!?  Neighbouring patches and other sites along the south Devon/Dorset coast are getting birds left right and centre that would be additions to my 2013 patch year list - but they just aren't coming here! 

Saying that, the last two days have seen an improvement in the birding.  And tomorrow looks like it may be quite good too...

The strong wind and heavy rain that I woke up to yesterday morning ensured my first stop of the day was Seaton Beach for some sea watching. The conditions were a bit too inclement though...

Pants visibility

I knew the front was going to move through quickly though, so at 10:45 I was back here, and half an hour later exactly the same view as the above photo looked like this...

What a difference a few hours make!

It was actually very annoying that the weather cleared through so quickly because when it was cloudy and still a bit grim, birds were passing. As soon as the big yellow thing came out passage dried up and the viewing conditions became horrendous.  In 45 mins I logged:

12 Common Scoter

7 Brent Geese

1 Balearic Shearwater (very dark bird which seemed to be lingering below a feeding flock of Gannets)

2 Arctic Skua

1 Dunlin

Where was my Little Gull? Sooty Shearwater? Rare Grebe? Eider??? See....so many possible year ticks!!

I had a couple of trips alongside the Estuary too - with the first one showing a nice (presumed) fourth-winter Yellow-legged Gull by the tram sheds...

Sorry for the poor quality pics - it was chucking down with rain!

The Yellow-legged Gull on right with two Great and one Lesser Black-backs and two Herring Gulls.

This was actually a really interesting bird (I know very few of you will agree with me!).  The head streaking and pale washed out yellow legs wouldn't be right if this was an adult Yellow-legged Gull, but the bill shows this bird isn't an adult - with a dark smudge.  Other pro-Yellow-legged Gull features that helped rule out a weird hybrid (which actually never entered my mind) were long winged appearance, small white primary mirrors, narrow white tertial crescent, mantle colour, overall structure, bill size and head shape. 

Another look along the Estuary a few hours later showed the Yellow-legged Gull again (now north of Coronation Corner) and two Brent Geese...

Can we have a goose other than Canada or Brent PLEASE!!

And now to today. Axe Cliff was my first port of call this morning, I was hoping for some good vis mig but it never really got going. Best of all was my first Ring Ouzel of the autumn, which was amongst several Blackbird, 10+ Song Thrush and a Redwing.  A few Chiffchaffs were in the bushes too, with three Stonechat and three Reed Bunting also present.    

After this, a look from the farm gate showed the Spotted Redshank still on Colyford Marsh and a stunning Marsh Harrier sat out in full view preening - nice!  

Lastly, a quick visit to Lower Bruckland Ponds showed a surprise diving duck! Was it a Pochard???......

...was it heck! Yet another Tufted Duck, you guessed it - not a year tick!

Eastern Invasion Finally Reaches The Patch

Thought I was going to have to wait a bit longer for Yellow-browed Warbler to get on my patch year list - but I was pretty confident I was going to get one at some point this autumn considering the monster influx up north a week or two back.

I basically spend all of October and Novemember every year looking for Long-tailed Tit flocks - so I was pleased to hear some as soon as I got out of the car at Lower Bruckland Ponds this afternoon. With so many leaves still on the trees at the moment it's not easy checking tit flocks, so I decided to go in under the trees and look up.  Within a few minutes I got my prize, as a Yellow-browed Warbler popped out literally a few feet in front of me!! Sweeeet.  Better still, as I was watching it, another called from just above and behind me about four or five times!  I fumbled around trying to get some pics, but soon the whole flock moved off and across the pond.  About 15 mins later I had brief and distant views of one again, and heard more calls as the tit flock disappeared south away from the ponds.  Sadly no one else connected, but Dave H heard one a few hours later. The weather was pretty lousy though.

These Yelllow-broweds are our earliest ever, by a day, and represent the eighth and ninth for the patch. The last one I saw here was on 30th Oct 2007 - the two since (both at Beer Head, one in 2010 and one in 2011) were seen only by their finders.

This is the best pic I managed of the bird I saw. Look at that stonking 'super', and you can just see a wing bar... 

You eastern beauty!

Although this photo is pretty rubbish, all the other photos looked like the below, so I'm glad it decided to turn its head...

A Yellow-broweds arse!

There was clearly a bit of a warbler influx today, an early morning sprint around the valley showed 15+ Chiffchaff, and there were at least five at Lower Bruckland Ponds. Other than this, a few Wheatears and Yellow Wags, and my first autumn Stonechat today, migrant passerines haven't exactly been abundant or surprising over the last week. It's been all about wading birds.

Last Friday, a Little Stint and a Ruff appeared on Black Hole Marsh. There's now four Ruff on Black Hole Marsh, and a cracking juv Spotted Redshank which has been around since Saturday. It was quite flighty and vocal today, although looked quite settled on Colyford Marsh scrape this afternoon.  Dunlin numbers have been pretty stable throughout with 20-30, but Bar-tailed Godwit numbers seem to be ever-increasing with an impressive 11 on the Estuary yesterday! Wildfowl numbers have also increased dramatically recently, with a juv Pintail last Thursday and five Shoveler on Monday being notable. Still hoping for a Pochard!

I have been keeping an eye on the gulls too. There's not been that many to look at sadly, but amongst them yesterday was another one of those 'presumed' Lesser Black-backedxHerring Gull hybrids...

Not quite a Yellow-legged Gull

Washed out yellow legs, short wings and legs, smallish head and bill, overall small(ish) size, head streaking, wing tip pattern and mantle colour all give aways that it's not the 'real McCoy'.

I've been disappointed by the sea, although tomorrow looks like it might be worth a look.  The best I managed was yesterday morning when easterly gull passage included my first Med for several weeks (an adult), a Common and 11 Black-heads, plus two Sandwich Terns. Birds flying west included two Teal and two Common Scoter.

That's all the birdie stuff dealt with, but before I sign off I must mention that since the last post I've added an extra year to my age. Birthday means birthday cake - and when your fiancee is a professional cake maker this is what you get...

They tasted as good as they look!

A Week's Worth Of Witterings

Thought it was about time I wrote a blog post! I've certainly got a fair bit to write about, so I'll try and keep it brief and put in plenty of pretty pictures.

To start with, let's rewind a week to Bank Holiday Monday. Just before Jess and I were heading out for the day I received a phone call from Sue Smith who thought she had a Black Tern on Black Hole Marsh. I was there in a shot (half way through shaving!). Thankfully the Tern remained, although only just - it flew off north about a minute after I arrived!  It looked quite a pale one to me, and I don't remember ever seeing a juv Black Terns with a pale brown mantle (they've always appeared dark to me), but it was just a Black Tern. Not that that's a bad thing though as they're really scarce on patch - so a very welcome patch year tick. See pics HERE and HERE.

So I headed off to Sherbourne for the day a happy chappy. And totally unrelated to anything else on this post, look what we saw...

 

A gold post box!

And if you can't remember why there's these gold post boxes around...

I saw him win this medal....on telly. Well done Peter!

The following day saw me rushing down to Black Hole Marsh again, this time for a juv Little Gull seen from the Tower Hide. Sadly I was about five minutes too late despite my fastest sprint from the car park to the hide!  Oh well, you win some you loose some. I did see a juv Cuckoo though, and am sure it is a second bird as to me it seemed a lot more rufous than the the first bird (which hadn't been seen for at least a week before).

I didn't have much birdie time last week, but when I did (except for the Tern and Gull twitch) I went in search of autumn passerine migrants, hoping for a rare warbler, Ortolan or Wryneck. Sadly none of these materialised with my best find being a juv Osprey over Beer Head on Wednesday 28th. I first picked it up just offshore after the gulls went up from the camp site, then it came in and flew west right over our heads - luckily Karen and Ian weren't far away. 

My first of the autumn

Also on Beer Head on Wednesday morning were: 35 Yellow Wags, 26 Wheatear, 5 Chiffchaff, 2 Willow Warbler and singles of Grey Wag, Tree Pipit and Whinchat.  Despite these fairly good counts, they all felt like lingering migrants from the weekend/bank holiday fall.

There's a Whinchat in the lower pic

Thursday morning I thought I'd give Axe Cliff it's first visit of the autumn. No good to be honest as they haven't cut the crop yet so Ortolan potential = zero! Still, I had three Tree Pipits and a Yellow Wag over and a few Wheatear and a Spotted Flycatcher on the deck, so it wasn't a total waste of time.

Saturday saw me give Black Hole Marsh a proper look for the first time for over a week! It was the first time I saw the 'Curlew Sandpiper show' with at least 15 juveniles scattered about amongst the Dunlin and Ringed Plover...

Some are coming stupidly close to the hide too!

 Also present were two Little Ringed Plovers, a Ruff and this juv Turnstone...

Taking time out from stone turning and having a bit of chill time!

This afternoon I gave Black Hole Marsh another look. On the marsh was a similar selection of birds to Saturday, but a trip to the Tower Hide was certainly worthwhile.  I thought I heard Spotted Redshank call shortly after I arrived, and soon spied two likely suspects roosting up river from the Tower Hide, both clearly juvs. I got everyone on to them (everyone who was interested anyway!) but we had to wait a little while until we saw some head and bill - they were clearly very sleepy!  The rising tide pushed them about which allowed me to get this superb flight shot...

You won't see any better flight shots than this!

They eventually moved on to Black Hole Marsh and mingled with the Blackwits and Redshank.

Just before my visit to Black Hole Marsh I had a look around Lower Bruckland Ponds. Whenever I go here I always spend a lot longer wandering around than I was planning too as there's always so much to see and photograph!  Best of all today were a couple of lovely male Ruddy Darters...

Check out that body shape! Is that what they call an hour glass figure!??

I don't think I normally see Golden-ringed Dragonflies this late in the year, but have seen plenty recently including this showing one at LBP today...

One of my favs these

Along with the expected Migrant Hawkers...

The dragonfly of the autumn

It's not just dragonflies that distract me here, because as always there were lots of butterflies too. The best being the second flight period of Dingy Skippers...

Dull but sweet!

American waders are turning up all over the place at the moment - so I know where I'm going to be doing most my birding over the next week....

Wheatears At Last!

Saturday was a non-birding day except for a quick and urgent look at the Estuary mid afternoon, this was because earlier in the day 'Sidmouth Clive' had seen a Spotted Redshank from the Seaton Marshes Hide.  Now up to about ten years ago, we used to have one or two Spotted Redshank winter on the Axe annually, but in recent years you don't usually see them here until mid autumn, and only in ones or twos. So as you can imagine I was very keen to see this bird as soon as I heard about it, and am pleased to say I did rather rapidly connect with it - a beautiful bird in winter plumage.

Later on in the day Jess and I went for a wander around town, and jammed the Spoonbill in the corner of Seaton Marshes right by the cycle path.  It's odd how this bird disappeared for about a week and has suddenly reappeared, maybe it ventured into Dorset for this time as I've noticed the numbers at Lodmoor have varied from two to four.

Sunday was as usual a day spent at work, but with blue skies greeting me when I finished at 16:15 I was keen we went for a late afternoon stroll, but to where? I suggested to Jess we gave Beer Head a visit - where better to enjoy sun, sea and stunning views!?  Quite by chance I then found out a few Wheatears had made landfall to south Dorset during the afternoon, what a stroke of luck!  Pleasingly Beer Head came good, and the first spring migrant made it on to my year list - Wheatear.  There were two actually, both stunning males, but neither very obliging. Still, the first Wheatear of the year just HAS to be photographed how ever far away and with whatever camera you have on you...

What a great sight!

Today, I headed over to Branscombe for about 7:45. The sea wasn't as flat as I was hoping, and I could only see three Great Northern and three Red-throated Divers on it. Over it, a female Red-breasted Merganser flew east with six Common Scoters, with a further eight Common Scoter past by 08:30.  Although Merg isn't a year tick for me, it's a good reminder of how the sea can produce a good bird at a moments notice.  I think I need to spend a bit more time looking out there - there are several gaps on my year list that more time sea watching could fill.

The Last Two Days

I shall start with yesterday, and I spent most the afternoon along the Estuary - where better to be when it's wet and windy!

Just so I don't bore people yet, I'll start with the waders, and I saw the Spotted Redshank (which now seems to be hanging out in front of Seaton Hide), a Common Sandpiper (drat!), three (maybe four?) Barwits still and 35 Dunlin.

Amongst the gulls I chalked up six Med Gulls, and guess what lucky blog readers?... I managed to photograph four of them...

3 ads and a second winter

A fourth adult and another second-winter remained un photographed as they were way north of Coronation Corner.

'Gavs warbler' called a few times in quick succession from the same large garden (known as Pallas's Garden to me!) that he heard it in a couple of days ago. I spent the next half an hour looking and listening for it but to no avail. Bloody bird! It did sound good, but from what I heard I couldn't rule out an Eastern(ish)/dodgy Chiffy.

And now to today, and I went down to Colyford Marsh this morning for high tide...

It was quite a high one too!

There were still 7 Greylags on the marsh, with a zillion Canada nearby. The highlight though was a very vocal Grey Plover that flew in and landed briefly beside the scrape. Nice - but not the 'Grey P' I was after...

I only had my Lumix with me, and it was raining - hence the crappy pic!

And that's about it really! Although I should take this opportunity to sum up my garden ringing over the past week. It has been good really, whenever I've had the net open I've been getting a steady flow of birds. The highlight was this...

A VERY fat 1w male Blackcap

There were many pointers as to why this was a first winter bird (aged 3), though the brown flecks visible in and around the black crown was probably the most straight forward way of telling...

Interesting to see a slight hook-tipped bill, can't say I noticed that in the hand

And that's a wrap - as they say.

A (Half) First For The Patch!

It would be a full tick if I lived and birded by the UK400 club rules. Unfortunately I am a law abiding BOU birder, so a half tick it is!

Anyway, I came across the aforementioned bird whilst scoping from the 'Farm Gate' in Axmouth at about 10am... a stonking adult Greenland White-fronted Goose!

I have seen and found several Eurasian White-fronted Geese from the very same place, and the first thing I noticed when I came across this bird was how dark it was - and for a WFG quite a hefty beast too. I knew it was going to be a Greenland even before I saw its bright orange hooter - which obviously clinched it! I sent the texts out, and I understand the bird is still with us so I hope everyone who wanted to see it has.

I am a bit of a grey goose fan - and this was the most stunning grey goose that I've ever seen in my life! I'm afraid the photos don't do it justice as it was distant (as ever from the Farm Gate)....

Leg trembling stunning (in my eyes anyway!!)

There was also a Spotted Redshank viewable from the Farm Gate, walking around and feeding in the small pools on Colyford Marsh.

Before this, I had already had a good morning! I'd spent an hour at Axe Cliff. I know I really should have stayed here longer and counted the vis mig - but it wasn't overly impressive - and with the conditions as good as they are I feel as though I need to cover as much ground as possible!

The highlight came just as I was ending a phonecall with James Mc. Just as he was saying "have a good day mate", I heard the 'magic autumn rattle'. I promptly hung up, and a Lapland Bunting flew west just above cliff-top height, 'rattling and chu-ing' to its hearts content! As flight views go, they were very good - and I could clearly see dark smudging on its breast, which I guess makes it a male?

Otherwise it was just the usual suspects going over, including a few Redpolls and Siskins. There was very little on the deck though. A nice treat offshore were 10+ Bottle-nosed Dolphins, it was tip top conditions for cetacean watching with a flat calm sea.

Looking over the valley and towards Beer, it was interesting to see how the 'Pipit field' looks. It really does stand out, being surrounded by mostly green fields, it looks massive too! I'm sure it's very enticing to many over flying passerines! I really do hope to kick up a OBP or RTP from here within the next week or two....

Worth noting we didn't see the Richard's Pipit here today during a quick stomp about late morning

Also had a look around Lower Bruckland Ponds this morning, with Gav. The highlight was without doubt our first record of Cetti's Warbler for 2011!!

For years our Cetti's population has been growing, with at least six singing males in the valley during spring/summer 2010. But the harsh winter since then has cleared them all out - whether they've died or have pushed off. Anyway, this bird was very vocal, calling repeatedly, and I reckon probably the first definite true migrant Cetti's I've ever seen!...

Crap photos - but I reckon you could count the tail feathers on the lower photo!

Well I think that's it for today for me - work is looming! I wonder what tomorrow has in store? Long may this 'purple patch on patch' continue...