Spotted Flycatcher, Saltram Park

Friday 24th May and we had a quick walk at Rame Head with Mother-in-law on a grey and cool morning. It was breezy but we sat on some benches in a sheltered spot and admired the view.

A few gannets were seen offshore and whitethroats and a yellowhammer were heard on the cliff slopes. Despite the weather a speckled yellow was flitting over the vegetation along with a common carpet and we also found a very small cricket nymph.

Common Carpet

Cricket Nymph

With Spring 2019 almost at an end and the only usual summer migrant I have yet to see being spotted flycatcher I headed off to Saltram Park in Plymouth for a look around following reports of birds being seen there. I have never seen one in the Plymouth area before other than 1 at Plymbridge Woods many years ago but which was almost at Bickleigh so not technically Plymouth, but SaltramPark is a big place with lots of trees and so I asked local birder Pete for some advice as to where to look.

I caught the bus to Marsh Mills and walked along the River Plym to Saltram Park, seeing an out of place collared dove out on the mudflats along the way. More usual bird sightings on the estuary were an oystercatcher managing to find lots of worms out of the mud, 2 shelduck, an adult lesser black-backed gull and 2 great black-backed gulls amongst the herring gulls, a pair of Canada geese with 5 fluffy goslings and 3 male and a female mallard flying over, while on Blaxton Meadow 9 shelduck and 2 little egret were seen.

Canada Geese with Goslings

I wandered around the Park checking out all the areas advised to me and eventually after watching blue tits, great tits, blackbirds, a jay, a buzzard, blackcaps, robins, wrens, 2 swallows, 2 ring-necked parakeets and a singing male chaffinch I finally found a spotted flycatcher sat unobtrusively in a tree and occassionally dashing out to catch passing flies before it flew off out of sight. The views were a bit distant and I later refound it or a different bird in a nearby area before it disappeared from sight again but I was very pleased to see one.

Blackbird

Ring-necked Parakeet

Heading back to Marsh Mills and I picked up a red kite drifting north high overhead and being mobbed by a carrion crow, a first for Plymouth for me too.

I stopped off at Blagdons Meadow on the journey home, the site is extremely dry from the lack of any recent rain, but I did find southern marsh orchids coming into flower and early purple orchids going over including a white form, and common blues and burnet companions were flitting about in the grass with a female sparrowhawk soaring overhead the only bird of note.

 Common Blue

 Common Blue

 Common Blue 

 Burnet Companion

Southern Marsh Orchid