Roll on April!

Thought I best bring you all up to speed before we get into April, when it will probably all kick off on the migration front...  mind you it looks like it already has!

I was at work most of today, so missed Bun's male Redstart on Beer Head and the Osprey that flew up river mid afternoon (seems to have been several of these arrive on south coast today). A quick look around as the sun set though showed a big increase of hirundines in the valley, with 70+ Sand Martins and about five Swallows feeding over Colyford and Bridge Marsh.

Yesterday morning I enjoyed leading a tram trip along the Estuary, with six Sand Martins north, a Wheatear (my first female of the year), a Greenshank, a Dunlin and two male Shoveler the highlights...

Female Wheatear

Redshank and Greenshank (now in summer plumage)

Male Stonechat on the tram overhead!

Don't get many Wren photos so thought this was worth posting!

A couple of evenings prior to this I spent some time at our only remaining reliable Little Owl site. Great to see at least one still hanging on...

The distinctive shape of a Little Owl with a stunning orange sky backdrop

And that brings me up to date with my local bird news. April it is over to you...

Divers and First Swallow

Had a great hour at Branscombe this morning with Bun, looking for divers and hoping for something more.  Well the something more never appeared (except for one Mute Swan, four Canada Geese and 18 Common Scoter) but the divers were absolutely fab!

We were surprised to say the least when we realised the group of three divers we spied soon after our arrival were all Black-throateds! I know, it sounds so stringy, the number of mis ID'd Black-throated Divers reported is frankly frightening, and even though I was looking at them, my County Recorder head just wasn't having it... but they were!!   I knew I had to get some photos to prove we weren't having a funny five minutes, it's just a shame the birds were about a mile away...

And you thought my LRP photos were bad!!!  They were always gradually drifting west but remained in a tight flock, at first just resting on the sea but later diving quite frequently.

Thankfully these weren't the only divers that we saw, there were also two Great Northerns and at least four Red-throats (including one in summer plumage).  

The only other birdie highlight of the day was my first Swallow of the year that leisurely made its way north over Bridge Marsh late morning.

One Swallow Doesn't Make A Summer...

....but does two?

I was very happy to see (and hear) two Swallows with ten Sand Martins over Lower Bruckland Ponds this afternoon.  Throw in about five Chiffchaffs (two singing) and it should have felt very spring like.... well it didn't at all!  It was absolutely bloody freezing grotty weather with rain and gusty winds, and then 'tchak-tchak-tchak'; 45 Fieldfares flew over low east! It felt more like the middle of winter.

Always like to get a pic of my first Swallow of the year but the dull conditions didn't help

Part of the Fieldfare flock. You can actually just about make out a Sand Martin in the bottom left hand corner of the shot too.

I've checked the Estuary gulls several times today, as we are well overdue another white-winger. Nothing really, with the only 'oddity' amongst the larids being this...

"oh crap - water water and water, where do I go? I need a car to run in front of quick!"

Over on Seaton Marshes, I failed to see any Wheatears again, with only the lingering drake Gadwall being notable...

A very underrated duck

Being Left Behind...

We (not just the patch, but Devon as a whole - in fact to a certain extent the south west!) have been left behind by the rest of the UK. The east coast has seen yet another superb influx of migrants, scarcities and rarities but very few have reached us.   I thought the Lower Bruckland Yellow-browed Warblers a fortnight ago were going to be the start of a cracking spell of birding for us - but that wasn't the case.

Although I haven't had much time to go birding, I've forced myself to look along the Estuary and river valley at least once a day. And every couple of days I've given either Beer Head, Axe Cliff or the marshes a good look.  The highlight of what should be one of the best times of year has been...a Brent Goose!  Yes - that's how bad and frustrating it's been.

The cold northerly winds that closed last week shouted Whooper Swan or grey goose to me. Annoyingly the Whooper Swans decided to fly back north a little to the west of us (yes you guessed it - Dawlish Warren had three on Friday morning) and the goose wasn't a grey one, but as I've already mentioned a Brent. I thought the 90 Canada Geese would attract something but I was hoping for something a bit better.  Wildfowl are clearly on the move at the moment, a few days ago I had three Shoveler fly past at sea, and this morning a lovely juv Pintail was on Lower Bruckland Ponds.

Black-headed and Common Gull numbers are also increasing, with two Med Gulls (a first and second-winter) on Saturday morning and an adult this morning.  Waders have been trickling though with a few Ruff still about (apparently five this morning), 15 Dunlin and a lingering Greenshank.

Vis mig hasn't been spectacular but there's been some ok days with good numbers of the expected species passing over. Have had several Reed Buntings, Grey Wags and Siskins go through, and my first Redpoll of the autumn with two over Black Hole on 6th Oct.  Considering the number of Redwings in the UK I'm amazed to say I've not actually seen one!  I've heard a few going over in the night but a day time bird has so far eluded me.

Because I've seen no decent birds I've taken no photos of birds. Well that's except for a Swallow I spied this morning - I'm starting to note down any hirundines I see now as they are getting few and far between. If I didn't tell you I took this photo this morning, it could easily be a late March pic of the first returning male Swallow...

You better get going mate!

I was pleased to get the moth trap out a few times before the weather turned cooler. One of the nights isn't worth talking about, but the other - 8th Oct - certainly is!  In the trap the next morning were 69 moths of 19 species. This included plenty of immigrants, such as...

Two Vestals, only caught one before in the garden ever!

My third Clancy's Rustic

A Delicate

And my highest ever count of Dark Sword Grass, four.

And that's that. I'm afraid this long awaited blog post wasn't worth waiting for. Hopefully things will get better soon...

 

Bird Ringing

Since moving into to our new place bird ringing has taken a back seat. Well not even that, it's been somewhere in the back of the trailer! Currently our garden isn't suitable for any form of bird ringing - there are just too many cats about. When I lived at Mum and Dad's, few cats, nice big green garden and lots and lots of birds meant it was ideal for bird ringing.

I can still go up to Mum and Dad's to do bird ringing, but instead of being able to put the nets out for an hour or two between other jobs like I used too, I'd now have to set a morning aside to do nothing but bird ringing. And this year I've just not had the time.

I am pleased to say though (and my Twitter followers will know this already) my ringing pliers have come back out over the past few weeks.  Not the mist nets yet though.

For me, the best thing about ringing pulli (that's nestlings) is that I'm also taking part in the BTO Nest Record Scheme. This is a very important and on going scheme as it is the only accurate way of monitoring the breeding success of birds in the UK. As I'm sure you know, you do not have to be a bird ringer to take part in the Nest Record Scheme - for more details see here: http://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/nrs. I am very fortunate to have a ringing permit that enables me to ring the young as well, which adds the chance of another avenue of useful data coming from my nest visits.

Swallows are a keen interest of mine, and currently I am monitoring ten active nests. This total could increase dramatically in a week or so though!  Out of the ten, my first visit to each revealed eight nests of eggs and two nests of young. The young were easily big enough to ring and each of the two nests contained five birds.  One of the nests had really big young in which I thought were just a few days from fledging. A week later though and at least four are still snuggled in there...

You can only see two here, all five may well have been in there but I only saw a max of four.

The other nest of five was exactly the same nest I ringed six in last June. If they are the same parents, they are clearly bloody good parents!

As well as Swallows, I've ringed four broods of Tits. One nest with just two young Great Tits in that have just fledged, a box with six young Blue Tits in which should have just fledged (they looked ready to go two days ago), a box with seven Blue Tits that I ringed just a couple of days ago...

They've probably got about ten days left in the nest before fledging

And best of all, because they are on the Red List, a nest box containing two young Marsh Tits (and a cold egg). They were really quite big, with just a few mm of growth required on their outer primaries before being ready to go...

So nearly a 3J!

A follow up visit to the Marsh Tit nest confirmed they have successfully fledged. Fantastic news!

Expect more bird ringing-related post from now on...

I Was Not Expecting That!

When I ring in my garden, all I put up is one 20 foot net in the front garden hoping to catch birds flying on to/off the the lawn and flying to/from the feeders.

Today I only had the net up for a couple of hours this afternoon, and had caught a couple of 'new' Goldfinches, yet another 'new' Bullfinch, and a heap more '3J' Greenfinches.. Then I caught something I really wasn't expecting to catch in our small front garden...

It's only a bloody Swallow!!!

Yes, we get Swallows over the garden all the time - but never in it! He was quite a 'well endowed' male too...

Big boy!

Now this Swallow is going to fly to Africa with some bling - some Waite bling :-)

I had a ten minutes look along the Estuary late morning, there's a load more juvenile Herring Gulls out now - which is going to make picking out a juv Yellow-legged a tad more tricky! Despite grilling the gulls a good'un, all I could find were three fine fine FINE summer plumaged adult Meds; here's two of them...

I will never get bored of seeing these!

Bon Voyage

Avid and long-term readers of this blog will know that every winter I usually enjoy a birding trip to Norfolk with some of my fellow 'patchers'. Last winter this never happened, but instead, tonight we are driving up to Scotland for some birding fun! There's no lifers up here for me, but I've just not been to Scotland for 8 or 9 years - a return trip is definitely overdue!

Anyway, before I go, I really should update this blog with what little birding I've had chance to do over the last week...and I have two nights of moth trapping to update everyone on- wooopeee!

Birds first, and let's re-wind a week to last Saturday when Bun and I enjoyed an afternoon stroll through Black Hole Marsh and Colyford Common....

On Black Hole Marsh, a Little Ringed Plover (found by Ian Mc earlier in the day) showed on a spit from the hide. The only other summer migrants we noted were 20 Sand Martins and a Swallow.

The LRP - our second of the spring so far

From Colyford Common hide, a redhead Goosander on the river was a bit of a surprise - we couldn't enjoy it for long though as it soon swam up river and out of sight.

Sunday was a day of work, with no birding. Though I was very pleased to hear the Iceland Gull had returned, with Phil getting this cracking photo of it (see HERE). You can see what I meant when I said it still had quite a dusky and well marked head!

On Monday and Tuesday, well I can't actually remember what I did! So I can't have seen any decent birds!

Wednesday morning I spent a couple of hours on Beer Head first thing - it was dire!! Later on in the day, only my second House Martin of the year flew over my front garden. Swallows suddenly got a lot more obvious too. A couple of Sandwich Terns were fishing off the sea front early afternoon.

Thursday morning was another Beer Head morning, with the light northerly wind I knew it was going to be decent even before I got there.

Unfortunately I didn't have all that much time, so spent all the time I did have on the east side of the head - around all the bushes. The highlight was without doubt the two Redstarts (one of each sex) that were in The Summit bushes. The male quickly flew off north, and I caught up with him at first in The Sheepwalk, then again in The Dell. He was never approachable though, which is why the best photo I have of him is this...

Stonking bird!

Phylloscopus warblers were passing through in force too, with 50 Willow Warblers and 15 Chiffchaffs noted during my hour and a bit I was here. I just wish I had more time to look - I reckon there must have been a Pied Fly lurking somewhere!

Yesterday, an hour's birding revealed very little - and today I have/will be doing none. So that's the birding up to date :-)

Before I write about my two moth catches, butterflies are out in force now. Over the last few days I've seen my first Comma, Brimstone and Orange-tips, as well as plenty of these...

Small Tortoiseshells

Ok, it's time to clean up the moths! Last Friday night (1st April) I caught 30 moths of 11 species. No new species for this year, but several new for the year:

1 V-Pug
1 Streamer
2 Oak Beauty
1 Dotted Border
1 Early Thorn
16 Common Quaker
1 Twin-spotted Quaker
2 Small Quaker
2 Hebrew Character
2 Clouded Drab
1 Early Grey

Here are a couple of photos...

Streamer

V-pug

Last night, I trapped 34 moths of 8 species, same goes - no new ones but a couple new for the year:

1 Early Thorn
1 Brindled Beauty
1 Lunar Marbled Brown
8 Common Quaker
7 Small Quaker
8 Hebrew Character
2 Clouded Drab
6 Early Grey

Right, that's enough laptop work...time to get packing! Expect a bit of a monster post on my return....

Gulls And More Summer Migrants

The weather totally changed overnight, with the high pressure and blue skies of recent days replaced with rain and mist! A drastic change in weather conditions during migration periods usually means something happens on the birding front, so this morning I chose to leave 15 minutes early for band practice so I could give the Estuary the once over.

A scan with my bins over the rather small collection of big Gulls just north of Coronation Corner revealed the very exciting sight of an immature white winger! I quickly assembled my telescope to see...

...a first-winter Iceland Gull :-)

This is the first Iceland Gull (seen) on the Axe since August 2009. As you can see it was a very well marked individual with a fair bit of streaking around the eye and head, and some dark markings still on the scapulars and coverts.

It spent a few minutes in the water, before flying a short distance and landing amongst the main gathering of Gulls...

Note the second summer Med in the foreground!

After watching it for about 25 minutes, and just as Ian Mc pulled up, it took to the air and flew off north. Despite looking for it this afternoon, there's been no sign of it since :-(

Today has seen a fair bit of Gull action, with up to 40 Lesser Black-backed Gulls on the Estuary and six Med Gulls...

All six of today's Med Gulls - the only adult was the metal ringed bird

The weather conditions really did 'feel' good today for some migration action, but aside ten Sand Martins, a Swallow and two singing Willow Warblers at Lower Bruckland Ponds late morning, it wasn't until I got to Black Hole Marsh mid afternoon that I noticed some actual passage.

Here 20 Sand Martins, several Meadow Pipits and a surprise flock of eight Ringed Plovers flew north over. Afterwards at Seaton Marshes I saw just four hirundines, but one of these was my first House Martin of 2011. It was with two Sand Martins and a Swallow feeding low over the southern part of the reserve.

To complete today's post, the Bewick's Swan is still in the valley, and during a quick sea watch late afternoon, my first Sandwich Tern of the year came in and flew around for a few minutes looking totally lost in the sea mist!...

Sorry about the awful photo, but as you should know by now - it never normally stops me! :-)

Good Weather For Ducks

Yesterday morning I had an urge to find an Aquatic Warbler, so Bun, Karen and I gave the marshes on the west side of the river a good 'bashing'....did we get one??

Well if we had found one you would have known by now! We did unearth at least 15 Sedge Warblers though so we considered it a worthwhile few hours, and it is something we will certainly do again if a few more Aquatics start appearing on the south coast.

During our wander several ones and twos of Yellow Wags flew over, along with a couple of Swifts.

Today has been a day of rain, though I was out early before it really started lashing down. Blackhole Marsh showed the same selection of birds as recent days, though the Little Stints have gone now.

Visiting birders be aware than work has started on the main hide here. The walkway is being built now, with the hide going up once this has been completed. This is the work done by the contractors on day one, not bad I suppose...

Pity it couldn't wait another month though

There were lots of hirundines feeding over the water, with this juvenile Swallow using one of the diggers to rest on...

Interestingly this bird was still being fed by one of its parents

Just as a major rain storm came over, I had a bit of surprise whilst looking out to sea. A flock of seven duck appeared, flew in off and up river - they were Pochard!

...not that you can tell that from this photo!!

Soon after they were floating on the water north of Coronation Corner, but I couldn't see them a couple of hours later. An interesting and surprising record for August!

I had the moth trap out night before last. I won't list what I caught as there was nothing new for the garden or the year. I had 44 of 12 species, with Setaceous Hebrew Character being the most numerous, and singles of Small Waved Umber and Jersey Tiger being the highlights.