We had a walk around Burrator Reservoir on Monday 19th February, we did a lap of the reservoir and it was very wet and muddy along the road after all the recent heavy rain. The water level in the reservoir was also very high and so there was a good flow of water going over the Dam.
It was very quiet on the bird front with a singing Mistle Thrush the highlight. A Green Woodpecker, a Buzzard and a Nuthatch were also heard and 2 Grey Wagtail, 3 Cormorant and Siskins were also seen and the White Feral Goose was still hanging out with the Mallards and Canada Geese.
After our walk we stopped off at Mavis and Mike's for a Cream Tea to celebrate Mike's Birthday, sadly there were no Siskins on Mavis's bird feeders but 2 Long-tailed Tits were present and a Raven flew overhead and the scones and cake were delicious.
I headed off to the Hayle Estuary for another Gull torture-fest on Tuesday 20th February, it was overcast, breezy and mild with more heavy rain forecast to arrive in the evening. Unfortunately my train to St.Erth was delayed by 50 minutes so I lost some of my birding time but I get to claim the princely sum of £2.20 under GWR's Delay Repay scheme so silver linings!
I disembarked off the train at St.Erth and walked to Lelant, noting large numbers of roosting Gulls out on the Hayle mudflats along the way. On arriving at Lelant Station I set up my scope and scanned through the Gulls and amongst the throng of Lesser Black-backed, Herring, Black-headed, Common and Great Black-backed Gulls present were a sprinkling of Mediterranean Gulls and best of all a distant 1st winter Iceland Gull hidden amongst them.
There has been both a 1st winter Iceland Gull and a 1st winter Kumlein's Gull present at Hayle recently but this bird was too distant to confirm exact ID. Kumlein's Gull is considered to be a subspecies of Iceland Gull so it's basically an Iceland Gull anyway although I reckon the bird I saw was indeed the Kumlein's.
The tide was heading in quite quickly and the Gulls were slowly flying off upriver to resettle on the remaining exposed mud and so I walked back to Lelant Saltings Station where I had much better but still distant views of the Iceland Gull before it eventually flew off downriver.
A surprise sight was a juvenile Spoonbill fast asleep amongst the Gulls, it eventually woke up and promptly flew off to Ryan's Field so I hoped to catch up with it a little later.
I scanned and scanned the Gulls present but couldn't find any Caspian Gulls, Yellow-legged Gulls or the Ring-billed Gull but I did find 2 Knot, 25 Bar- tailed Godwit, 4 Greenshank, 12 Goosander (5 male) and 9 Grey Plover amongst the usual Dunlin, Redshank, Oystercatcher, Curlew, Shelduck, Wigeon and Teal.
I then walked over to Ryan's Field where the Spoonbill was still present and as expected fast asleep but fortunately it woke up and began to feed and I had some great views of it as it fed quite unconcernedly right in front of the hide. It is a ringed bird from Denmark and has been present in the area for a few months now, it was a joy to watch it feeding as my usual Spoonbill views are of sleeping birds.
Time was marching on and it was soon time to walk back to St.Erth to catch the train home after my shorter than expected day out birding, this train was delayed too but arrived into Plymouth just under 15 minutes late so no Delay Repay to claim this time but the whole trip ended up only costing me £6.60 so I can't complain. Fortunately I also arrived home before the heavy rain arrived too so all in all not a bad day out.
We had a walk around Plymouth Hoe on Friday 23rd February, we dodged the showers as we went but enjoyed the sunshine when it broke out from behind the clouds. There was no sign of any Purple Sandpipers on the low tide but I did find a very smart male Black Redstart at Rusty Anchor, my first of the year and presumably the bird I saw here back in November last year.
Saturday 24th February was noticeably cooler than of late but mostly sunny with occassional showers as I headed out to The Plym for a walk. I arrived off the bus at Marsh Mills to find a pair of Goosander busily diving for fish just below Longbridge and as I walked down river towards Blaxton Meadow they drifted past me on the outgoing tide along with another pair of birds.
The highlight of my walk was finding the female Red-crested Pochard, unusually out on the river near the gas pipe and fresh from her wintering Dartmoor reservoir sojourns. She looked very unsettled and eventually flew onto Blaxton Meadow where she promptly went to sleep amongst the vegetation on one of the small islands.
Otherwise it was fairly quiet on my walk, the usual birds were seen with the highlights being 3 Common Sandpiper, 4 Little Grebe, 3 Greenshank and 2 Grey Wagtail along the river, a male Mandarin and 7 Snipe on Blaxton Meadow and 4 Stock Dove, a Treecreeper, a Great Spotted Woodpecker (heard) and a Goldcrest in the Park. A good count of 13 Roe Deer was notable too with 2 seen in the Park and 11 on Chelson Meadow.
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