There's A Weasel In The Front Room!

There really was....

After work yesterday, I went round to a friends, hoping to catch the second half of United v. Chelsea. I walked through the door to see a sofa upside down, something was up! My mate thought he glimpsed something bounding in through the door of the front room and under the sofa. I joined the search - and was shocked to see a Weasel in the corner of the room! It made a dash, and we lost it.

The girls in the house screamed and were long gone upstairs, so we took everything out of the front room, and relocated the Weasel in a corner of the room amongst some bags. We moved the bags, but he just disappeared!! We had blocked all exits except the one to the open front door - he didn't go out here, but he had gone!

After another twenty minutes of searching, we put everything back and had given up- but we couldn't stop wondering where he had gone. And then...

There he is - under the electric fire!

Amazing views!

I couldn't get a full body shot as he was always too quick! These were the best I got...

What a mammal!

I had to leave once he had been cornered, and I believe after I left he was successfully trapped and released. How bizarre! I missed the football though - good result mind! :-)

So, to continue the 'weird' themed post - as I went to my car to go to work early Sunday morning, a Mallard looked very out of place stood in Durley Road!...

It was raining - they do say that's good weather for ducks!?

And finally, you may wonder why the Tesco building site is not making the birding headlines, despite the large number of Gulls that had been roosting on here. Well that is because they ('they' I presume being Tesco) have deployed a high tech bird scaring device...

Yes - that can only be described as a 'Black Kite!'

I do apologise for the quietness of this blog lately, I am knee deep in 2010 Devon Bird Report stuff at the moment. I have done no ringing, and the only 'time off' I've given myself, I've used trying to find an American wader or two. So far, as you may have guessed, I've failed...

Not The Yellow-legged Gull I Was After...

A sweep of the Estuary this evening revealed very few large Gulls, the chances are no end of small boats, noisy kids and barking dogs have been disturbing them all day!

Anyway, I did eventually find a large gathering of Gulls - they were loafing on the quiet part of the Tesco building site...

This habbo is quite unique for us - I will be keeping an eye on it during the autumn for sure

Anyway I couldn't find the juv Yellow-legged Gull I've been after for the past week, but I was more than happy with this stonking adult...

Pretty obvious isn't it!?

It was hard to get a photo of it with its head out, it just wouldn't stop preening!

Actually adults - in fact all ages other than juv - seem to be quite scarce at this time of the year when the juvs are coming through. We seem to get most non-juvs later on in Sept/Oct or earlier in the year in spring.

This was all the birding I've done today, but several hours of ringing this morning was slowish - although I did catch four of these...

Juv Starlings

And three of these...

Cute baby House Sparrows!

Every Little Helps...

So Tescos have well and truly taken over Seaton - and I don't just mean on the land! This morning I had my first proper sea watch of the year, and I'm pleased to say one of the biggest worries of the Seaton sea watcher is no more (for now anyway!).

Many sea watching localities have 'markers' - very useful when you are trying to get fellow sea watchers on to passing birds..."it's coming up to pink buoy 51", or "just going past red trawler E-341", or "just passing the offshore rocks"....not in Seaton!!

We usually have about half a dozen identical black flags, and if were are lucky the occasional small fishing boat! But thanks to Tescos, we now have...

Although it is hard to see in this misty pic, there's a massive floating pontoon out there, with a green flag and that huge yellow marker in the foreground

This boat is always out there - complete with lights!

And every now and then, we will have this....

This boat is literally about three miles long - it's bloody HUGE!

Well I'm sure you can tell from all this gibberish and random photos that it wasn't the most exciting sea watch! A Manx Shearwater west at 08:30 was easily the highlight - our first of the year. Other than this; 17 Gannet, 11 Fulmar, 1 Kittiwake and 3 Sandwich Tern were all that went into the notebook.

On the Estuary for most of today, an Avocet has graced the mud. This species is only just about annual for us, so it's always good to see one...

Photo taken during a rain shower

I've been disappointed with the Gulls today; 30 Lesser Black-backs and a second-winter Med being the best. At one stage, I even got bored of Gull watching, so pointed my Lumix at an unsuspecting Blackwit...

The yellow-red-yellow combo of rings on its right leg tell us it's an Axe Estuary ringed bird

Lastly, whilst driving along a woodland track I came to a drastic halt! For a weird moment I thought I'd been transported to Scotland as a large black game bird came walking through the undergrowth! But no, it was just a Pheasant - a rather funky looking one though...

Maybe in a couple of weeks!??