Stuart's Wildlife Diary: More Local Birding - Water Pipit and Jack Snipe

Sunday, 26 March 2017

More Local Birding - Water Pipit and Jack Snipe

Saturday March 25th and a beautiful sunny day at last saw me heading off to Wembury for a walk but there was a strong and cold easterly wind which hampered things a little. However it felt very spring like and I managed to collect a good range of wildlife sightings.

A pug moth was found in the toilet block, I caught it in a pot and tried to get a photo before releasing it, however I had forgotten how neurotic and skittish pug moths are and it flew off before I could get a decent snap.

Pug Moth Sp.

More cooperative was a speckled wood sunning itself in a sheltered spot out of the wind and I also managed to see a holly blue which flew past without stopping and a total of 4 peacock.

Speckled Wood

Chiffchaffs were singing away with a few seen and I heard a male cirl bunting and had a brief view of a female. On the rocks were 2 little egrets, a grey heron, 11 oystercatcher and 3 male and a female mallard and a lone adult gannet was seen offshore. A raven had a bathe in a rock pool before having a preen on the clifftops and I heard and then saw a red legged partridge in the field above the horse field in the same spot I saw them a few weeks ago.

Red Legged Partridge

There was no sign of any wheatears but the highlight was a very handsome looking water pipit in summer plumage feeding on the beach with rock pipits and meadow pipits and pied wagtails. I have only seen a summer plumaged water pipit once before, many years ago and a very brief view as it flew off so it was very nice to get some very good views of a very attractive bird. I assume it is the regular wintering bird having moulted into summer plumage before migrating back to its breeding grounds but it was quite wary, not helped by regular disturbance by walkers along the beach, and was also regularly chased off by pied wagtails and rock pipits nearby, quite unlike the behaviour from the wintering bird.

Water Pipit

Sunday March 26th was another beautiful sunny day but again with the keen and cool wind and so I decided to finish my week off as I started it with a trip to the River Exe, this time catching the train to Dawlish and walking to Dawlish Warren for a look around. At Dawlish a grey wagtail was feeding along the stream leading down to the beach with the 3 adult black swans and the lone small cygnet feeding nearby.

Grey Wagtail, Dawlish

The sea was very choppy and rough but I managed to find 2 great crested grebe, a female common scoter and a pair of red breasted merganser offshore along with the usual shag, cormorant, herring gull and great black backed gull.

I arrived at the main pond to find a pair of birders scanning the reeds only to be informed that my target bird, a Jack snipe that has been present by the upturned boats and showing well for a few days now, had moved off and out of sight just a short while before. I decided to wander off to view the area by the upturned boats from a different position and found the bird hidden amongst the reeds and surprisingly difficult to pick out against the vegetation. I popped back to the 2 birders to let them know where it was before returning to my original spot and managed to get some fairly decent views although the bird mostly slept with its head tucked under its wing. Occasionally it would wake up and preen before returning to sleep but when it was awake it constantly bobbed up and down in a most peculiar fashion, a bit like a wagtail constantly tail wagging I suppose. It was nice to see a Jack snipe on the deck, I have only ever seen them in flight, and its short bill and dumpy profile reminded me of a miniature woodcock - cue some more awful record shot photos.

Jack Snipe - in the reeds to the right of the blue boat

Jack Snipe

While watching the Jack snipe I also saw a male reed bunting, a female cirl bunting, a little grebe, a pair of mallard, 2 moorhen and singing chiffchaffs and a decent view of a water rail feeding along the reed edge before it realised it was being watched and disappeared into the reeds.

Water Rail - record shot

A walk around the Greenland Lake area gave a very nice view of a hunting male sparrowhawk looking gorgeous in the bright light. However I was less enamoured with it when I watched it chasing after a small bird which I initially thought was a bullfinch due to catching a flash of a white rump. A better view of the bird and I realised it was in fact a wheatear, my first of the year - luckily it escaped and flew off high to the north and I guess the sparrowhawk was just doing what sparrowhawks do.