Wembury and The Exe

After all the excitement of Slimbridge it was back to more usual local fare on Monday 3rd February as I caught the 9:05am bus out to Wembury for a walk. It was a sunny and fresh morning and surprisingly quiet at Wembury again with only a few people and dogs about (not that I'm complaining), it was also quiet on the birding front too but I managed a few interesting sightings.

It was high tide when I arrived and Oystercatchers were roosting out on the rocks while 17 Turnstone were feeding on the seaweed mass at the top of the beach. There were 9 Little Egrets roosting in the wheatfield with Herring Gulls and Black-headed Gulls and amongst them I picked out an adult Mediterranean Gull and an adult Common Gull. Later there were 3 adult and a 1st winter Common Gull feeding together offshore but again I couldn't find any Gannets passing by.

I had a look in the sunflower field at The Point following reports of Reed Bunting and Brambling being seen there amongst the finches and buntings. The field seemed empty at first except for a very smart male Reed Bunting perched up on a dead sunflower head, only my 3rd sighting of one at Wembury, but I could see small flocks of birds flying about at the back of the field before dropping out of view so I went to investigate. Eventually I found around 100 Linnet and 70 Chaffinch, the numbers being noticeably lower than on my last visit, and there were also Skylarks, Cirl Buntings and Goldfinch mixed in with them along with the/a male Reed Bunting. A Kestrel perched up on the telegraph wires was keeping an eye on their activities too.

Reed Bunting

Other sightings of note were a Firecrest and a Grey Squirrel in a village garden, a female Sparrowhawk hunting along the footpath at The Point, 2 Chiffchaff flycatching along the beach and a Blue Tit nest prospecting a hole in a telegraph pole.

It was a cold and frosty but sunny start on Wednesday 5th February as I caught the bus out to Plympton to rendezvous with my mate Mavis for a birding day out at Topsham. After getting off the bus at St.Marys Bridge in Plympton I had a look along the stream as I walked up to our meeting point, there were no Dippers present but I did find 3 noisy Grey Wagtails and a female Goosander.

The drive up to Bowling Green Marsh was uneventful and we were ensconced in the quiet bird hide by 09:45am as the tide was heading in. There were lots of birds out on the Marsh and with the rising tide small flocks of waders began to appear to roost and we had a great time scanning through them.

Highlights were a Ruff, 2 Spotted Redshanks, 200+ Avocets, 5+ Snipe and 2 male Tufted Ducks amongst the usual Redshank, Lapwing, Dunlin, Black-tailed Godwit, Greenshank, Teal, Wigeon, Pintail, Shelduck, Mallard and Shoveler. Amongst the Canada Geese were 7+ Greylag Geese and 2 Swan Geese and a few Brent Geese were seen flying over to the estuary.

Shovelers

Pintails

Canada Geese

Swan Geese 

Spotted Redshank amongst the Redshank

We headed over to the viewing platform as the tide began to drop and as we scanned across the slowly appearing mud the waders from the Marsh arrived and we had some great views of the Ruff, a Spotted Redshank, Avocets and Black-tailed Godwits and we also found a few Curlew, an Oystercatcher and 2 Bar-tailed Godwits. Out on the river we also found 5 Red-breasted Mergansers with the 3 males busily displaying away to the 2 females present with them. An all too brief view of a Marsh Harrier was had as it flew over the reedbeds and up The Clyst and a Chiffchaff was seen flitting about in the brambles.

Redshank and Spotted Redshank

Onwards to The Goat Walk where we had lovely views of feeding Avocets along with distant Grey and Golden Plovers and Brent Geese. A pair of Red-breasted Mergansers flew upriver with 5 Turnstones and in the nearby fields we had some nice views of Redwings and a male Kestrel. 

Avocet

Kestrel

A great day out as always with some good birds seen, helped by the mostly sunny and calm weather and the high tide, and it was good to catch up with Mavis and share Christmas Cake and a bit of a laugh.