Arctic Tern

Although we've had wet and windy weather for most of the last week, last night the south coast got a real battering so I was keen to spend time on the sea front this morning.  It was clear to see it had been a lively night...

Looking east from Spot On Kiosk

I wasn't expecting to see many birds passing, and I was right; just two Kittiwake and a Gannet flew by in the 45 minutes I was watching.  I was hoping more for a storm-blown Little Gull or such-like, and was encouraged by the 300+ Black-headed Gulls feeding at various points off the beach.  Sadly there was no Little Gull, but a cracking juv Arctic Tern more than made up for that!  It remained on view the whole time I was there, feeding close in between Fisherman's Gap and the mouth of the Axe.  It even came close enough to allow for some reasonable shots...

Black-headed Gull above the Arctic Tern

Arctic Tern showing off the white-trailing edge to its secondaries, this would be darker grey if it were a young Common Tern

Arctic Tern showing nice short all-dark bill and again those lovely pure white trailing edges to the secondaries

I took this when it was much further down the beach, but I wanted to show how juv Arctic Terns can look almost Sabine's-like at times - they have such contrasty wings quite unlike young Common Terns.

Later in the day, early afternoon, I was delighted to see the Arctic Tern again, but this time on the Estuary!  Only the third Arctic Tern I've ever seen on the Estuary - I've seen more Black Terns here!

Arctic Tern roosting with gulls

Arctic Tern resting on the water, lovely cute head and small bill obvious here

Arctic Tern flying down the Axe - perfect wing pattern on show here

Again, but this one is a video still. Best pic showing overall shape in flight

The wind was still quite strong early afternoon, and when it is so windy I find using 'flight-style' pretty useless when ID'ing terns, but here's a video anyway. Sorry it's so shaky...

I do apologise for the overload of photos of one tern, but we never do that well for any terns here really and Arctic Terns are scarce - you could easily go a year without seeing one.  So I just had to make the most of a lingering and fairly showy one, in my favourite plumage too!.  I'm pretty sure this is my latest ever Arctic Tern, but I have seen a later Common Tern here (which is unusual), with an adult on the Estuary on 13th Nov 2014 found by Tim Wright.  One day I will use these pics to do an ID post for juv Arctic vs Common - I just need to get some pics of a young Common Tern now! 

I had another look along the estuary later in the afternoon, when it was nice to get some good views of six Cattle Egret in the field just south west of Boshill Cross...

4 of the 6 Cattle Egrets

Looking where this Cattle Egret is stood I do wonder how often Cattle Egrets get pooped on!?

There weren't many gulls on the Estuary, but one of the most distant flocks contained a second-winter Yellow-legged Gull which was rather nice, not a common age here...

Third from right along the back, a nice long-winged bird

Yellow-legged Gull again with wings up showing tail pattern

Four species of gull here allowing good comparisons of mantle colours and size

Not a bad day really :-)

More Stormy Weather

Cracking weather here last night and today, big seas, strong south west wind and plenty of passing showers.  I gave the sea as much time as I could, but sadly no Leach's Petrels came past when I was looking. There were plenty of Gannets out there this morning moving west, along with a lone Shearwater sp. (looked Balearic but mega distant) a few Kittiwake and Auk sp. and one Common Scoter. 

A nice bonus was a Sanderling that flew around with three Ringed Plover for a short while before pitching down briefly on the beach...

I've also spent time today checking the gulls on the Estuary, there were excellent numbers of Great Black-backed Gulls but nothing better in with them. I suppose the highlight was this first-winter presumed intermedius Lesser Black-backed Gull. Although the photo is pretty bad (taken in strong sunlight) it does shows how fresh this bird looked. It basically looked like it had only just come out of the nest, by now a first-winter graellsii should be far more worn than this...

Another Storm and a Bemusing Brent

The storm that hit the south coast a couple of weeks ago has been well reported and documented (not least on this blog!), but the storm that hit a week ago tomorrow was even more destructive.

I wasn't out at all during last weekend, but Phil has informed me it was the highest he'd ever seen the water levels on the Estuary (and he's lived here for a very very veryyyy long time!). The Axmouth straight (road that runs alongside the Estuary) is still in a complete state, as the water came right over here that night. There's been something different about the Coronation Corner picnic site too...

A boat!

This boat was apparently floating along the road up past the church at one point during the night!  The wind caused damage too, with the large garden on the other side of the road to where this photo was taken in a complete mess...

Where will the Little Egrets roost now?

And on the other side of the Estuary the tram line has taken a real battering, with the bank underneath the track washed away in several places. Some of the poles have also been up ended...

Bird wise, I have been giving the gulls as much attention as I've been able to. But except for a couple of lovely Little Gulls (which are never to be sniffed at), they've given me nothing exciting since the Kumlien's.  I certainly think there is more to come though.  

Quite unusually we've had a few Brents for a week or so. It started off with two, increased to three on Monday and then four from Wednesday (and there's still four).  I've found one of the birds really quite interesting. 

Look at the Brent that's got the first third of its body hidden behind a clump of salt marsh...

The one side on

Clearly a Pale-bellied. Or is it...

Now the one on the left

....nope!

It shows almost pure white flanks that extend down to the vent area, but as you can see, the rest of the underparts are just too dark. It's got an impressive neck ring too. I know Dark-bellieds can often show paler flanks, but this is white.  Luckily the UK's leading Brent Goose expert is always just on the other end of a text/email for me (I won't name names - he'll get embarrassed), and it turns out it is either just a paler than average Dark-bellied, or possibly a PalexDark-bellied Brent hybrid.  And there I was dreaming of Grey-bellied or a Black Brant hybrid!!

Lastly, I had a worrying email from local birder Alan Bibby tonight, informing me of a disturbing variety of dead birds washed up on the beach this afternoon. I'm going to under take a complete beach walk in the morning, not really looking forward to it to be honest...

Gullmageddon in Seaton

Wednesday's storm must have stirred some food up for the gulls - with huge numbers around this afternoon.

Between 15:30 and 16:30 there were over a thousand large gulls, with about 700 feeding in two large groups off the beach (one off the harbour mouth, and the other to the east off Culverhole) and 300+ resting on the lower part of the Estuary.  Sadly though, I couldn't find anything of note amongst them - I'm certainly pretty confident there weren't any white-wingers in with them. Actually there were unusually few Black-backs, with only three Lesser and probably no more than 40 Greats, which makes 957+ Herring Gulls! 

There were very few small gulls too, with just a few Black-headed Gulls, Common Gulls and Kittiwakes offshore. It was a nice surprise to see yet another adult Little Gull though, which came flying through close west very determinedly at 4pm. Cracking bird.

And now for a quiz, spot the Little Gull...

I'll be quite impressed if someone does find it! It is there I promise, and more importantly, perfectly identifiable.

A Little Treat

I was hoping this would be a post containing several photos depicting the chaotic scenes at Seaton this morning. The day that saw the town's worst flooding since 1974. But I've been up since half four and I'm afraid I just don't have the energy.  I just had to post about this little delight though...

A look along the Estuary soon after dawn showed two adult Kittiwakes resting on the water, here's one pictured (very distantly!) with a Common Gull...

Kittiwake on the right

They started to fly around a bit, and being such a scarcity on the Estuary I thought I'd try and get this species on the house list while I could.  So I went straight home to set the scope up in the bedroom, which I peered down for a few minutes at a time every so often. 

I can't see much river at all from my house, in fact during low tide I can't see any at all, just the air space above it. But when the river valley is flooded, I can see this much...

Still not much, and most of what I can see it partially obscured by trees. To be (almost) precise, the Estuary is about 1.900 km in length, and I can see roughly 150m of it, and of that small section, only half the width of it.

Several short watches revealed no Kittiwakes, and with the wind having dropped by late morning I figured they'd probably made a break for the sea.  I kept watching though, and at midday had my reward with a cracking adult Little Gull feeding close to the surface of the water.  I saw it several times from the bedroom over the next couple of hours, before I just had to go for a closer look from Axmouth...

It was superb to watch, feeding exactly like a Storm Petrel pitter-pattering over the surface of the water with incredible elegance and ease. What a cracking bird!!

More 'bedroom birding' later in the day revealed yet another house tick, a Med Gull. I really should have seen this species from the house long before today, as they probably fly past every day of the winter! I obviously haven't been looking hard enough when one has passed. It was an adult circling over Black Hole Marsh with Black-headed and Common Gulls at about 4pm.

And now people, with my head literally resting on my laptop's keyboard, it's time to sign off for the night. But expect a post crammed full of photos in the next day or two...