Hawfinches

Aren't birds amazing. We've only ever had Hawfinch wintering on patch once, that was during the first few months of 2006. Now guess where I found two (eagerly anticipated) Hawfinches today - exactly the same tree that I saw my first patch Hawfinch back in 2006!

Hawfinch records are few and far between around the Axe. As well as the wintering birds mentioned above (two until late Feb '06, increasing to three and then five before they departed in mid March) there's been four other patch records before today. Two of these were of single birds seen for one day a piece in a private garden in another part of Colyton, with the other two thankfully being in front of my eyes. In 2010 early in the morning of 27th October I watched two Hawfinch fly north up the river valley from the gateway north of Axmouth, and then on 3rd November a single bird flew west during a vis mig watch at Beer Stables. 

With the current invasion I had a feeling the best chance of a settled one here was probably where the Colyton birds wintered, there's plenty of field maple in this area which is one of their favoured food sources. This morning was my third time of trying Burnards Field Road within the past two weeks, and it was third time lucky as on arrival two hefty finches were sat on top of a... well the bare tree. Success! First patch Hawfinches since Nov 2010. I fired off a couple of record shots...

I'm glad I got these pics because soon after both birds dived down into trees behind and disappeared (just like the 2006 birds often did!).  I sent a text out but a couple of minutes later there was suddenly an explosion of Hawfinch calls (that lovely soft seep) and they both flew up out of the trees and off low to the south east. Such a shame they flew so soon, but it's always a treat to see this species in flight. Annoyingly I don't think they've been seen again, but would not bet against them or others coming back here.

These cherry stone-crackers were a great finale to a good couple of hours out this morning, when I spent my time whizzing round the patch at breakneck speed checking as many spots as possible. Redwings were far more evident today with small numbers everywhere, the most being at Lower Bruckland Ponds where 12 Fieldfare were also present, along with eight Chiffchaffs in the willows around the top pond. A Lesser Redpoll was feeding with a small flock of Chaffinch on the Borrow Pit, and I was surprised to see the Bridge Marsh Cattle Egret had been joined by a friend, now two present...

So a lovely morning was had. And it wasn't a bad sunrise either...

A Spring Shortie

There was yet another aborted attempt at bird ringing on Beer Head on Monday morning, when I got up there it was too blowy.  Mind you, the sunrise was nice to see.... 

It was actually a great shame about the wind as there were clearly quite a few Willow Warblers about, with most moving through rapidly.  Determined not to make it a wasted early morning wake up, I headed down into the valley for a look about, where I was surprised to see a Short-eared Owl flying around over the Estuary.  It spent a few minutes hunting over Axe and Colyford Marsh, before pitching on this distant post...

It stayed here until I left 20 mins later, and eight hours on when I returned, it was sat on the ground about 10 feet to the right of this post!  Later that evening it was hunting south of Black Hole Marsh, and it did the same again tonight apparently.  Although you can't tell it in my pic, it's a really dark bird, in fact when I first saw it in flight through the bins I was expecting it to turn out to be a Long-eared. Pity it wasn't, but still Short-eareds aren't ten a penny around here.

Today I didn't get out birding until late morning, and my first little wander was my most productive spell of the day.  My first Lesser Whitethroat of 2015 was singing well, and showing now and then, in the hedgerow that runs north of Coronation Corner. Two Common Sandpipers were flitting along the near bank of the Estuary here, with a Greenshank feeding on the first bit of exposed mud as the tide began to drop.  Best of all though were two adult summer Med Gulls that only gave themselves away by repeatedly calling to each other as they flew over rapidly and VERY high north west - sweet.  

Despite quite a lot of looking, didn't really see anything else of note whilst out birding this afternoon.  I did see an Osprey, but that was the comfort of my own kitchen, as it flew south west over Black Hole Marsh.  Why bother going out?

And to break up the text a bit, here's another Wheatear photo. At least it's a female for a change...

Oh yes, I nearly forgot. On Sunday evening whilst watching my sixth Red Kite of the month circling over fields between Colyford and Musbury, two Swifts zipped into my binocular view. It's funny how often this happens, when your watching one bird in the bins, and another you wouldn't otherwise have seen appears in the field of view. Maybe I should just randomly put my bins up to apparent empty skies every now and then?

No birds here....or are there?

What Month Is It?

April for me has been utterly disappointing.  It started in the worst way possible with me missing what would have been a quality patch year tick - Glaucous Gull. I won't go into details, but it was a very painful miss as I could have seen the bird from my bedroom window and I was at home. But I am glad that finally we have had a scarcer gull on patch this year, because we have been looking daily, it just hasn't happened. Well until April 1st... and I didn't see it :-(.

Ok, so how could April get worse? Well believe it or not, I have not had a single patch year tick so far this month.  With the exception of the first few weeks of the year, I would say April is the most prolific month for a year lister - and in other years by this date I would have seen up to ten more summer migrant species than I have this year.  And I have been trying - we all have - it is just dire out there!  I still need Willow Warbler for crying out loud!!

I've had three early morning sea watches this month, a few Sandwich Tern and the odd Red-throated Diver and Common Scoter were all I came away with.

On Beer Head yesterday, and this morning, it honestly could have been January. On both days a single Chiffchaff was the only summer migrant I saw. There was a bit of vis mig yesterday morning, with a few Mipits, Chaffinches, Goldfinches and alba Wagtails over east, but very little really.  The sunrise was quite spectacular though...

So where are all the migrants!?  I have been thinking that this hold up will produce some exceptional falls (whenever it comes!), but now I am starting to wonder. If everything is grounded, and feeding up, when they do move on they will be well fed and in a hurry to get to their breeding grounds. So, could this hold up be costing us our spring?

Sorry for so much negativity readers, I do hope this will change soon...