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...

Not About Gulls!

Despite my best efforts I haven't seen any more interesting gulls on the Estuary, so I can assure all that this blog post is a gull-free zone...

It's been rather wet and windy this week, and last week, well for the whole of November to be honest! I've not been able to do any bird ringing because of this, but I have still had a dog to walk (and gulls to check!).

This is proving to be one of my best ever autumns on patch for winter thrushes (despite the mild weather!). Every time I go out I'm seeing Redwings, and more often than not Fieldfares too (saw 45+ two days ago) and I don't just mean fly overs which is the usual way we see them in the autumn. In most other years I don't see many winter thrushes settled around here until Christmas time, so it really is notable. And whilst on the subject of thrushes, I should mention here the house tick I had on 12th with four Mistle Thrush from my kitchen window.

Black Redstarts keep popping up in front of me too.  After seeing a male and two female-types at Axmouth Yacht Club on 4th Nov, I had three female-types here on 11th (with none in between, so all three could have been new birds?). Away from here I had a female-type in the main car park in Beer on 9th, and about two hours ago was treated to my third ever from my house, another female-type just a few roofs down.

Female-type Black Redstart at Axe Yacht Club on 11th.

The Glossy Ibis is still about, we went down to just one bird several weeks ago, and it's currently spending most its time on the first lagoon on the right through the first gate at Seaton Marshes 

Something that for me has been lacking this month, and this autumn, is Wood Pigeons.  I missed the biggest morning of passage, but have seen some flocks flying west. They've not had the ideal weather window to move en masse though, instead they've been trickling through in less than perfect conditions. Oh what I would do for a cold, still and sunny morning!

Wood Pigeons migrating over Axmouth Harbour.

Pigeon Passage

This morning it finally felt like autumn!  I stepped out the back door just after 6am and was greeted by a distinct chill and a beautifully crystal clear starry sky. A little later, just after the sun rose over Beer Head, it looked and felt equally as autumnal....

I knew the bushes were going to be quiet, but I was hoping for some good vis mig. Well, Pigeons certainly didn't disappoint.  Whilst here, and birding at other sites later in the morning, I had just over 8,000 Wood Pigeons fly west.  Some of the flocks were obviously spooked by something, and came tumbling down from high and continued flying west only just above head height.  Love hearing the 'woosh' followed by the sound of their powerful wing beats...

There were quite a few Stock Doves mixed in, and the odd flock of Jackdaw too.  It's a real shame cloud and rain came in just after 9:30, as it could have been a really big day for them. 

Forgetting the Pigeons, the vis mig was disappointing, with not that many smaller birds moving - although this could have been because they were passing ultra high due to the clear skies and light winds.  I suppose the highlight was a high flying very vocal Bullfinch going west - don't tend to see that many of these on vis mig. Otherwise it was just relatively small numbers of Skylarks, Linnets, Chaffinches, Reed Buntings, alba Wagtails and Meadow Pipits.

I did have a good 'vis mig' bird on Sunday, during a dog walk with Jess.  Whilst walking along Harbour Road in Seaton (the road just inland and running parallel with the sea front), the gulls went up and for a change I could immediately see why - a Kite!  Sadly it was just a Red Kite, but still great to see as winter records remain pretty scarce in Devon.  It flew almost directly above us as it followed the road east, then when it got to the Estuary began to spiral up before I lost it as it circled over Axe Cliff.  My rapid right hand meant the texts got out whilst I was still watching it, and amazingly Bun managed to see it from Seaton Hole!

I'll finish this post with a couple of off-patch photos.  We took the dog to Stover CP last Saturday, and I was pleased to see a pair of Mandarins in one of the arms of the main lake...

Maybe Tomorrow...

..that's a title I could have used for yesterday's post too!  Today was better though, less birds but a bit more variety.  

I didn't make it over to Portland again today - but am starting to dislike that place as they seem to be sucking up every BB rarity that's made it to the south coast of Britain!  Yes not only have they got a stunning Daurian Shrike, but on Monday they bagged a first for the Western Palearctic with a Pale-legged Leaf Warbler, and today a Siberian Stonechat has appeared.  And don't forget the Wrynecks, Hawfinches, Yellow-browed Warblers, etc...

Anyway that's enough of the negativity about Portland - I am in danger of sounding like a fellow blogger and good friend of mine!

So I did try Axe Cliff this morning, and am pleased to have changed location.  There seem to be a few Short-eared Owls about at the moment, and I thought here would give me my best chance of seeing one. And with only one area of rough grassland, it wasn't hard to figure out where it would probably be! And when I got to this strip of pasture, as expected up came a Short-eared Owl.  But I didn't expect it to fly south, south some more, and even further south, until it was a dot half way across the English Channel!

It all happened so quick too!  This was the first photo I managed of it...

Yeah I know - it could be anything!

And this was the last photo I took of it...

You can just about make it out still!

Short-eared Owls aren't regular on patch - so they are always a joy to see.  But this one was even more special because it made me the first person to see five species of Owl in a year on patch.  I'd do anything to take that up to six species though!

Back to Axe Cliff, and a Snipe was my second best grounded migrant of the morning, with a Stonechat and stacks of Linnets and Skylarks also noted.

We never do very well with vis mig if the wind doesn't have west in it - and today was no exception.  There were good numbers of birds passing over, with Starlings and Wood Pigeons being the most numerous species, but they were flying in all directions making counting impossible!  There were lots of Chaffinches too, along with several Siskins, five Mistle Thrush, two Brambling, two Reed Buntings and one Redpoll sp.

One of the biggest Wood Pigeon flocks I saw this morning

 

After Axe Cliff, a quick look along the Estuary showed a Ringed Plover (my first here for almost a month - just shows how terrible this autumn has been!), a Barwit and a Common Gull.

Mid afternoon the weather looked to be clearing, so I headed up to Beer Head.  I was wrong - in fact it clouded over even more and the wind was much stronger up here!  I still gave it a bash though.  Not much apart from Blackbirds in the bushes on the head, but looking down the Underhooken gave two immature Ring Ouzels. Two Stonechats were along the track as I walked off the head...sadly they weren't pale with black underwing coverts!  I have seen Sibe Stonechat once (Spurn), and I have to say I was really impressed with it!  You may think 'I won't bother - it's just a Stonechat'. I can tell you it really isn't - they can look more like Wheatears! Top birds.  Well done Portland...

The Weekend

Haven't got much to report really.  We are all a bit gripped/puzzled by a pager report of a second-winter Ring-billed Gull on Black Hole Marsh yesterday afternoon. It would have been great to have seen this bird for sure! 

On Friday last week, after Jess finished work we had a wander around the lanes of Colyford and I was surprised just how many birds were there!! Must have seen at least seven Chiffchaffs amongst two different tit flocks, for the umpteenth time this autumn I was convinced I was about to find a Yellow-browed Warbler!  

The highlight though was really out of the blue.  We had almost got back to the car when amongst a few Pied Wags a male Yellow Wagtail was perched on a telephone wire over a back garden of a farm house!  I was looking into the sun, but it really did seem to have a darker head.  I honestly thought I was cracking up though. I would say 90% of mid to late autumn Yellow Wags I see, but for the vent area, are almost yellow-less, this was yellow through the whole breast and belly!  I had a small digital camera with me, so took some snaps - these don't show much but seem to show a white throat and white super, along with two distinctive wing bars.  Anyway, I grilled it for a bit longer with my binoculars but learnt no more about it, then it took off and flew east with a Pied Wag.  It did call a few times when it flew and I have to say sounded pretty bog standard, I suppose it may have been a little less 'pleasant-sounding', but there was certainly no buzzing or rasping qualities to it.  

So my conclusion is, it was a Yellow Wagtail of some sorts...

A distant and silhouetted Yellow Wagtail

On Saturday, we were feeling energetic and walked from home to Branscombe!  Luckily we dropped a car off at Branscombe village hall first so didn't have to walk both ways - four miles is ok, eight would have been way above my limit!  Yes I am that unhealthy!!!

It was a stunning day and some of the views were totally splendid, this one in particular...

Looking west from Beer Head

There was a fair bit of overhead passage with Mipits, Skylarks and Siskins most numerous.  Grounded migrants were few and far between, with a Redstart below the main Beer Head car park being the highlight.

From Beer Head we walked to Branscombe through the Under Hooken.  It really is scary how much cover is down here, all these photos taken show different sections of it...

 

 

 

Simply impossible to bird. Too much cover which you can't get into or see over

 Annoyingly, later that day a male Ring Ouzel was found here. Drat.

Sunday as ever I spent at work, and whilst out the back managed a work tick!  A lone Jay flew low west over town - not unexpected I have to say.  It was nice to see a couple of small flocks of Wood Pigeons and Jackdaws going over, but not many passerines.

Monday morning, I decided to give Axe Cliff a look about.  It was nice to see a Ring Ouzel, with a very vocal bird perched up for a couple of minutes in a small tree near to the start of the Undercliff (another massive area of impossible to bird premium habitat!).  Otherwise save for a few Chiffchaffs and Goldcrests, and a flock of c150 Skylark, the selection of grounded birds was limited.

I have to say, overhead was disappointing too.  I was expecting a lot lot more passerines, with just low numbers of Mipits and alba Wagtails seen along with a few Finches.  I did however see 290 Wood Pigeons and one Stock Dove fly west - and it was nice to take a few photos of migrating Pigeons again...

 

The only time Pigeons become interesting!

After Axe Cliff, the Axmouth FC scrape gave a Grey Plover amongst half a dozen Lapwing - a new bird for me on this field!  And that was really it for yesterday.

Today I have been in all morning, with a net open in the front garden.  Amongst the small number of birds I've caught and ringed were a Goldcrest and two Coal Tit - migrants?  I'm sure the Goldcrest was, weighing five grams with next to no fat.

A Much Needed Patch Update

Well I've got a few days to talk about in this post. And because today has produced the best bird, I'll start here and work backwards....

Thursday 17th

It was a non birding morning for me today, well pretty much a non birding day. But at about 10am I had a phone call from Ian Mc, he had a wader on Colyford Scrape from the hide that was ringing alarm bells. An hour later when I was almost available to twitch it, I found out it had yellow legs - but had flown off.... FLIPPING HECK!

At half 11 I was back on patch, and Gav had seen it and was convinced it was a Temminck's - Devon's first November record I believe. By the time I had got to Colyford hide all the key features had been seen.

Don't get me wrong, it is a cracking bird, with bright yellow legs, and a proper patch rarity - only our second ever. But a yellow legged stint in mid November, after the autumn that the UK has had, just a bit gutting....

Cracking bird like I said though - mustn't be ungrateful!

It's with a Lapwing flock rather oddly, and every time the birds on the scrape were flushed by a Peregrine, it always flew around with them before returning to the scrape.

Wednesday 16th

With a whole load of Desert Wheatears turning up in the UK the previous day (including a corker my mate Dave tripped over on Skomer - lucky bugger!), I just HAD to walk this first thing in the morning...

What wonderful Desert Wheatear habbo!

I walked the whole of the beach! At the very start of the walk I saw these two crackers...

Just a pity the sun didn't come out for me!

And by the end of the slog - that was still all I had seen! Oh well, it had to be done.

I then had a quick look up the estuary, and was excited when my eyes could see about seven brown blobs on Bridge Marsh...

Ooohhhh - grey geese!

Bugger it - they were Greylags! There were still 12 Brent Geese on Colyford Marsh, and about a billion Canade Geese.....well about 70!

Tuesday 15th

Today was the day I did the dirty on the patch (see my previous post!), but not until I had given the Beer Cemetery Fields a good look...

There was very little grounded, it was in the air where of the action was happening. With the south easterly wind, all vis mig was heading that way - including loads of Wood Pigeons! In just over an hour I counted 17,600...

It was quite a spectacle!

Also overhead my first Brambling of the autumn, 20 Redwing, two Fieldfare and a Mistle Thrush.

Monday 14th

I put lots of leg work in with very little to show for it, despite a couple of flocks of Redwings flying low over the house soon after dawn. My first stop was Lower Bruckland Ponds, where the previous day James Mc had seen a very grey Chiffchaff.

I had seen bugger all, and was just heading back to the car, when I could hear a tristis-type Chiff calling. It was very elusive, and I didn't get enough on it to 'tick off' all the important plumage features, but it was very grey indeed with not a hint of yellow or green. Although you wouldn't know that from the only photo I took of it...

You can barely see it I know!

As I said though, it sounded spot on - nothing like the other calling greenish Chiff that was present.

The best the river offered was a Knot with the Blackwits off Coronation Corner...

Yes another awful photo!

When I pulled up to check the Swan flock near Boshill Cross, they all took off. That was because of this...

After some dinner!

The weekend as usual was a birding free zone for me, although on the way to Kilmington on Saturday afternoon I saw a nice flock of 60+ Fieldfare near Whitford bridge.

And that's that. Hopefully I will keep on top of blogging for the remainder of the autumn. Yes - I still think there is more this autumn has to offer...

A Frustrating Weekend!

Have had almost zero time for birding this weekend, I'm a fool for agreeing to work 13 days straight!!

Yesterday I have nothing worth writing about - so I won't, but then there's today...

I was at work from 7am, and it was soon obvious even from my sporadic forays into the back yard that Wood Pigeons were streaming over! I probably only saw a couple of thousand, but as I was inside for 90% of the morning I can only offer a rough estimate of the total for Seaton today, about two billion.... it's been a long day!

Now there has been a bit of talk recently (well a couple of weeks ago) on the Devon blog about what you put flyover Redpolls down as. Well personally I've always been quite confident calling them Lesser Redpolls, although when I put my records in they do go down as Redpoll sp., I'm not that confident!

Anyway, I've brought this up because this morning I really did have a Redpoll sp.! It was uttering the usual standard Redpoll flight call, except that it was deeper, and just sounded 'different'. This is the first one I've heard like this down here in Devon, and I have seen/heard a heck of a lot of fly over (Lesser) Redpolls (sp.)! Obviously there's nothing at all I can do with it, I just found it very interesting - I'm sure noone else has!

So all day I was desperate to get out - I felt the patch had so much to offer! Clocking off time came, and I went to Seaton Marshes for the last half hour of the day...now I kinda wish I didn't! (unless there's a patch first for us to all see in the morning!). Whilst walking around the Borrow Pit, at 16:55 I see a fairly high flying large raptor cruising north east. It was already past me and always heading away. This is how my brain went..

"oh look there's a pale Buzzard...
there's some dark marking on the belly though...
I should keep watching this...
oh its really distant now I will just have to forget about it...
oh I might see its uppertail when it comes down in front of that distant hill...
OH SH*T!!!!
oh bugger it's dropped out of sight, run Steve run, see if you can still see it from another vantage point...
drat I've lost it, best send some texts out..."

And why did my brain do that and make me run - because its uppertail was gleaming white!!

When I saw its uppertail it was a long long way away, and I only had my bins, plus it was almost dusk - but the white still shone out like a beacon! And there was lots of it too, more than half the tail.

Well will just have to wait and see. As I said it was nearly dark, so whatever it was I'm sure it hasn't gone far - but I didn't get anything structural on it, so it could well just be a weirdo Buzzard. Hopefully we will see tomorrow....

As this is my first post for a while, I should also sum up my birding. Since Nov 1st I've made two trips to the Beer Cemetery Fields. Both times I've seen five species of thrushes, the first visit on the 1st day of the month showed 5 Mistle, 3 Fieldfare, 2 Redwing and good numbers of Blackbirds and Song Thrush, and a visit there on Friday just gone showed 10 Redwing, 1 Fieldfare, 1 Mistle and even better numbers Song Thrushes and Blackbirds.

Also on Friday, a Spotted Redshank was on the river north of Corination Corner - let's hope this bird is going to over winter with us! Also an adult Med Gull, my first since the start of the week.

In a last ditch attempt to save this from being a photo-less post, a few hours of ringing during last week in the garden didn't catch me much, but I did catch one of these...

A flock of a few thousand is an amazing spectacle, but they are so much fun to handle too!

Passage Over Land And Sea

I'll start with this morning's sea watch. There was no quality, but quantity wasn't too bad in conditions that weren't anywhere near as windy and the met office said they would be the night before!

Watching from the Spot On Kiosk 07:30 - 09:00 produced (all west):

7 Common Scoter
1 Red-throated Diver
162 Gannet
109 Kittiwake
2 Common Gull
78 auk sp.
1 Dunlin

The only other bird news I have for today is of the Whooper Swan still opposite Stedcombe Vale and 11 Lesser Black-backed Gulls, 14 Black-tailed Godwits and two Dunlin on the Estuary.

Yesterday I spent much of the day printing off descriptions - highly exciting stuff!

Wednesday though was a good day! I woke up to fairly clear conditions, so went up to Beer Stables and 'vis migged' 07:35 - 09:10. Dark clouds rolled in at about 9 which put a halt to most of the passage.

The highlight was a single Hawfinch over at 08:10; it flew west about 80/100m north of me - the light was perfect which made the bird look simply stunning. As usual for this site, it was only just above hedge-top height. My first during a visible migration watch anywhere ever! I was rather pleased :-)

Wood Pigeons were on the move too. Although they weren't moving in large numbers by any means, it was nice to see flocks of up to 200 flying over the valley and off west. In total I logged 1,290 birds.

Pigeon passage!

Other birds seen during this watch included:

3 Stock Dove
11 Skylark
4 alba Wagtail
15 Meadow Pipit
2 Rock Pipit
1 Redwing
48 Starling
104 Chaffinch
4 Siskin
3 Greenfinch
14 Goldfinch
4 Linnet
2 Yellowhammer
2 Reed Bunting

Won't have much birding time at all this weekend, but I understand we've got some cold weather coming - bring on those Waxwings!