When Wood Pigeons Become Cool

I'm going to kick this blog post off with a video. Make sure you turn the volume up so you can hear their wing beats...

Yesterday proved a major Wood Pigeon day for us, with James Mc seeing somewhere between 30 and 50 thousand pass through (I really must buy him a notebook!) though sadly I only managed to witness about twenty minutes of this. But today, with clear skies forecasted for the first few hours of the day, I wasn't going to miss round two. James joined me for an Axe Cliff vis mig watch 08:00 - 10:00.

There were fewer Wood Pigeons today (for us anyway) with probably about 15,000 seen flying west. Still, many of them passed really low over our heads, or just in front of us below the cliff edge. As the morning went on flocks started passing higher both out to sea and inland, so we probably missed thousands!  I tried to capture their magic on camera but it's never the same...

Although this would have proved enough excitement, there was plenty more to be seen this morning.  After three busy nights of thrush passage, it was good to finally see more about in daylight hours. There were almost constantly ones and twos of Blackbirds, Song Thrush and Redwing taking off or dropping in, along with my first three Fieldfare of the year west. Pity the four Ring Ouzel James saw here yesterday weren't still about, or some more, but hey ho.

I stupidly forgot my notebook this morning, so the higher counts are more like guesstimates, but this is roughly what would have gone into my notebook (west unless stated); 

3 Lapwing 

7 Golden Plover (a five and two singles)

15,000 Wood Pigeon

50 Stock Dove (probably a gross undercount!)

6 Rook

200 Jackdaw 

140 Starling 

70 Skylark (most of these were inland of us so we probably missed more than we saw)

70 Blackbird (total includes both settled and migrating birds)

40 Song Thrush (total includes both settled and migrating birds)

45 Redwing (flying in all directions!)

3 Fieldfare

10 alba Wagtail

50 Meadow Pipit

70 Chaffinch

3 Brambling (all singles)

80 Linnet

15 Siskin

1 Redpoll 

6 Bullfinch

25 Reed Bunting

With all these passing migrants the predators were having a field day. Two Peregrines were almost constantly having a go at the Pigeon flocks, plus we saw three different Sparrowhawk...

Sadly the fields at Axe Cliff are a shadow of their former self. Since they've been ploughed, flattened and replanted this year with winter crops, they're proving completely unattractive to ground feeding birds. In past years today would have also shown hundreds of larks, pipits and finches feeding in the fields, adding another exciting element to birding here, but today absolutely nothing. I really can't believe Yellowhammers are hanging on, but they are...

After Axe Cliff I had a 15 minute look over the valley. A Great White Egret had flown west past Abbotsbury earlier in the morning, and by my reckoning was due to drop in on the Axe any minute. Sadly though, having now missed five here this year (Bob Longhorn found another on Black Hole Marsh yesterday, which stayed 45 minutes), this bird decided to completely bypass us and flew up the Exe instead. Typical! The other bird I was hopeful for was Glossy Ibis, as yesterday saw something of an influx of these into the UK. Despite checking all the visible ditches and scrapes, no luck. Guess what Sue Murphy found on Colyford Marsh late this afternoon though, yes, our first Glossy Ibis of 2017. I had the right idea - just picked the wrong time!

A few days ago it was nice to see a Cattle Egret still with us. Or was, I haven't seen it since! It was feeding with a few Little Egrets near the cattle on Bridge Marsh on Wednesday...

Am really looking forward to some more vis migging, hopefully there's a few more sessions left in this autumn. The question is though will a Hawfinch reward my efforts?  Only time will tell...

A Lovely Late Autumn Day

I had a lovely wander around town and along the sea front this morning, the clear blue skies and chill in the air made it such a pleasurable outing. Really seasonal. 

Wood Pigeons have been moving in fairly small numbers each morning since my last blog post, but the stronger northerly wind this morning ensured they were all sticking tight to the coast and remained fairly low.  Flocks were still of mostly between 200-400 birds, so no massive flocks or really impressive numbers yet, but it's always great to see Pigeon passage whatever the numbers...

The sea was quiet, with my first Red-throated Diver west the only notable sighting. There was a distinct lack of birds on the flat calm sea, I do hope we get some settled sea duck off here again this winter.

Over the last week there's been up to four Black Redstarts around Seaton. Sadly I didn't find the adult male that Phil had yesterday, but I did see three female/first-winter types...

The situation is much the same in the valley. Waders include the lingering Little Stint (will it over winter?), three Grey Plover and about a dozen Dunlin. Among the Canada Geese the first-winter Dark-bellied Brent Goose is still with us, and two Shoveler were on the upper section of the Estuary mid morning.

On Saturday morning four Golden Plover were with Lapwing along the A3052 by the Honiton turn off, a typical cold weather sighting.

Lastly, here's an absolutely stunning first-winter male Blackbird from the Borrow Pit this afternoon.  The all dark bill suggests it's a Scandinavian bird, which is probably true as so many of our wintering thrushes originate from here...

Patch Pochard

It was nice to see the first frost of the autumn this morning, the windscreen needed a good scrape first thing. And this unprecedented scene on the Borrow Pit (Seaton Marshes) not long after 9am complimented the weather conditions perfectly...

Patch gold!

As I've said before on this blog, any diving duck here is notable. Tufted Duck are annual on patch with 1-5 records a year. Pochard however has gone from being almost as regular as Tufties to a real patch rarity, and we have no idea why as the habitat hasn't changed (probably actually got better!).  The last Pochard here was three years ago, when I had a female flying around over the Estuary on 31st October 2013. Before that you've got to go back another two years for the previous record.

Drake Pochard (left), drake Tufted Duck (right).

Prior to this excitement the day was already a good one as I had seen a gorgeous Firecrest at Lower Bruckland Ponds. Although this site is an excellent one for warblers all year, and good for Goldcrests too, this was amazingly my first record of Firecrest here.  Firecrest numbers have been increasing annually on the south coast for quite a few years now, but this autumn has been a really poor one. This was my first of the autumn, and I don't think anyone else has seen one on patch.

The only thing I need to mention about yesterday was the first wave of Wood Pigeon passage, the clear skies and chill in the air meant it was almost inevitable. From where I was (Beer Head) I didn't see any flocks bigger than 600 birds, with most being of 100-300, so it wasn't a massive passage but good to see nonetheless.  I also had singles of Reed Bunting and Yellowhammer west, but surprisingly little else.

Let's hope the prediction from the Met Office of a cold winter comes good. The Waxwings continue to arrive on the east coast with a load more reported today, so all we need now is a nice bit of snow and ice to ensure they venture down here.

That's More Like It

What a beautiful spring-like day today, and it feels as though things are happening in the bird world.

Yesterday there were far more gulls on the Estuary than of late, with 70+ Common Gulls, 21 Lesser Black-backed Gulls and a new adult Med Gull. Nothing exciting no, but a vast improvement on recent times. 

And today?  Well today I've netted two patch year ticks!

With fog in the valley this morning, I spent late morning looking up for raptors at various spots around the patch. The highlight came at 10:45am when a Merlin (presumably a male) flew through north east very rapidly.  This is our first one of the year, so there's got to be a good chance it was a migrant passing through. Merlin is a bird you would expect to see here every year, but not normally until late autumn, so nice to get this one out of the way so early on.

The next year tick I found during a quick look along the Estuary mid afternoon. Avocet isn't guaranteed here every year, so I was overjoyed to see one feeding in the creek leading from the main Estuary to Seaton Marshes Hide...

Possibly the worst ever photo of an Axe Avocet

The Avocet ended up feeding right in front of Seaton Marshes Hide, so I reckon later the other local blogs will be festooned with stunning pics of it. I look forward to seeing them.

So it's 5th March, and I've already had the same amount of patch year ticks this month as I did in the whole of February!  Hopefully this is the start of the spring flood gates opening.

Now back to yesterday again, and Jess and I went 'Owling' around the patch from 17:30. This was a total success as we had excellent and prolonged views of two Barn Owls...

I've seen six different Barn Owls on patch so far this year - not bad going!

Followed by great (although very dull) views of a Little Owl that just wasn't trying hard enough to hide from us...

A ball of feathers!

I'm pleased to report that amazingly both the bird table and out table is still standing! We've been using our table every day, but so far only one bird has found the seed on the bird table...

If I was a bird I'd probably be a Wood Pigeon!

The End Of The Summer Break

Well I'm sure any blog viewers I have left are fed up of that baby Barn Owl they keep seeing when they click to look on this blog! On the bright side, it could have been something less cute, like a photo of me!!

Anyway, yes, that was my 'unofficial summer break' from blogging - back to normal (whatever that is!) now. I know - can I describe the last month as being summer!??? Well my calendar says it was.

My first post back is going to start with a bit of weirdo! This afternoon Fraser was at the Field Studies Centre, where there is an Egyptian Grasshopper on show at the moment...

Sorry for the picture quality, this photo was taken through a fish tank!

It doesn't really look like much in the above photo, but adding this 1p to the picture should show why it is pretty cool to look at...

It's bloody huge!!!

It was found about a week ago in Colyton, apparantly on a house roof! Although it arriving in a packet of fruit/veg/salad is probably more likely, with all this Saharan sand dust carpeting vehicles all over the county within the past week - could it not maybe have arrived with this? Personally I don't see why not - especially if it really was found on a house roof.

Whilst on insects, I should just mention my first catch of over 100 moths for this year, in the garden on the evening of 25th/26th June. I won't list the whole lot, but the big guns were represented by 3 Elephant and a Poplar Hawk, my first immigrant of the year with a Silver Y, numbers thanks to Heart and Dart (47), and other new species for the year with Maiden's Blush, Large Yellow Underwing (4), Heart and Club (5), Common Wainscot, Snout and this (very fine) Herald...

A fine moth - The Herald

Silver Y - hopefully 2012 will prove a better year for this immigrant species (and the rest!) than 2011 was!

Back to birds then, well I haven't been out and about much at all. Mostly because it has been June, but also because I haven't (as usual!) had much time.

I did visit Black Hole Marsh late Saturday (30th) with Jess, a lone Common Sandpiper on the Estuary, and the first juvenile Black-headed Gull of the 'autumn' were the only 'highlights'...

So where did you come from?

Today Black Hole Marsh offered a Black-tailed Godwit (as my Twitter followers will have seen - or as you will have done if you've been watching my Twitter feed at the top right hand corner of this blog), and a Greenshank which circled over the marsh before flying south and appearing to land on the Estuary.

After the fog had cleared I attempted a sea watch - seven Manxies later and I gave up!

As well as little birding, I haven't done all that much ringing. A short session last week gave me 15 House Sparrows (always great to handle) at Jessie's, and later in the day back home my first 3J Bullfinch of the year, and this beast...

The second Wood Pigeon I've ringed in the garden

Several weeks ago I ringed a brood of six Swallows near Beer, late last week they looked like this...

Almost too big!

At the weekend, five birds successfully fledged the nest. So great to hear they have done so well considering the awful weather!