A Northern Mockingbird was found in an Exmouth garden back in January 2021, just as lock down began, and reports of its presence in Exmouth continued into April. Some naughty birders travelled down to Devon from afar during the lock down to look for it and fell foul of the lock down rules, being slapped with £200 fines when caught out by the police, but with the first stage of lock down easing on March 29th the exact whereabouts of the bird in Exmouth were revealed to those not in the know and as expected a deluge of birders travelled from far and wide to Exmouth to see it as witnessed by all the photos on various social media platforms. And I sat back and watched and waited until Easter came and went and with the bird still present on April 7th I decided to go and have a look for it on Thursday April 8th. Big mistake!
The bird was being seen in gardens by a busy main road into Exmouth, the gardens a classic slice of suburbia with exotic palms and high fences and a swine to view from the pavement. A gaggle of twitchers were present when I arrived on site at around 11:40 and the mood wasn't positive with no sighting of the bird that morning. News soon broke of the Northern Mockingbird being found at a site in Sussex, some 150 miles away to the north-east, and that was that - the bird had done a moonlight flit just as I finally got around to go and see it! Oh, Bollocks!
It was low tide and so there was no point in staying in Exmouth and so I headed over to Dawlish Warren on the opposite side of the River Exe for a look around instead and I had a very enjoyable wander about there although I couldn't help thinking that I would have enjoyed my time more if I had just stayed local to Plymouth.
The sun was shining more and more from behind the clouds as I arrived at Dawlish Warren and as a result the Sand Crocus were showing very well, I always forget how small the flowers actually are.
A scan offshore revealed at least 14 Sandwich Tern diving for fish although they were mostly distant. A winter plumaged Great Northern Diver was a surprise with 6 summer plumaged Great Crested Grebe not so much.
There were 3 Mallard ducklings on the Main Pond with their Mum and along with Moorhen and Canada Goose there were 2 Little Grebe with at least 2 small Grebelings. Chiffchaff were heard singing and at least 2 Willow Warblers were quietly singing in the willows too.
Raven, Kestrel, Sparrowhawk, Buzzard and Swallow were seen flying overhead but despite regularly scanning I didn't find myself an Osprey.
An enjoyable but disappointing day out and while my day involved dipping the Northern Mockingbird for others 150 miles away their day provided an unexpected bonus bird beyond their wildest dreams.
No comments:
Post a Comment