I caught the 7am bus out to Wembury on Friday 29th August, it had rained heavily overnight although I had slept right through it but I hoped it might have mixed things up a bit on the birding front. It must have been quite an overnight deluge though as the stream by the road leading down to the beach had burst its banks and was flowing over the tarmac and the road surface was quite damaged in places. The footpath down the valley to the beach was quite seriously eroded away too and along my walk the steeper sections of footpath were equally the worse for wear.
I started off my walk by heading up to the church and I set up my scope for a look offshore, I nearly didn't bring my scope out with me but I'm glad I did as a flock of around 100 Kittiwake were resting on the water just to the east of The Mewstone before they took to the air and headed west. Later at The Point there were around 50 Kittiwake roosting on the western end of The Mewstone before they too headed west and while watching them another flock of around 100 Kittiwake flew through low over the waves heading west as well. This flock contained quite a few juveniles amongst it and as I scanned the trailing end with my scope I picked up the menacing prescence of a pale phase Arctic Skua following behind. It soon caught up with the flock of Kittiwakes which then flew up higher above the skyline with the Arctic Skua joining them before it passed the front of the flock and returned close to the water as it continued west.
Along the beach the usual Oystercatchers were roosting with a Curlew, 2 Whimbrel and 4 Little Egrets and I finally found a ringed juvenile Mediterranean Gull amongst the roosting Gulls, my first of this autumn following a total blank last year.
A Sparrowhawk buzzed low over the Bracken by The Pines, later presumably the same bird had a dash through the pines at the Radar Station in an attempt to catch any of the Wren, Long-tailed Tit, Chiffchaff, Blue Tit, Chaffinch, Robin or Great Tit feeding amongst the foliage although I didn't see if it was successful or not. A Grey Heron also flew overhead and was given short shrift by some Carrion Crows, it foolishly flew over to The Mewstone where it was given even shorter shrift by the Herring Gulls before appearing to land out of sight.
Just 1 Clouded Yellow was seen today but there were still good numbers of Common Blue, Meadow Brown, Small and Large Whites and Small Copper about. A Common Darter and a Southern Hawker were also seen.
Other birds of note on my walk were a Jay flying over the hillside above the wheatfield, 2 Kestrels and 5 Buzzards overhead, Gannets offshore, 2 Fulmars on The Mewstone, 2 Grey Wagtails over heading west before 1 returned east and a noisy Green Woodpecker flying into The Pines.
On my previous visit to Wembury last Tuesday I had walked along the cliff path towards Noss Mayo but only as far as the farm ponds, I should have walked further as a report appeared on the Devon Birds website that afternoon of Osprey and Whinchat being seen near Clitter Woods. I've never walked that far along the path before so I decided to go and take a look about, I guess it's pushing the boundaries of my Wembury patch but it's still technically Wembury so I'm going to allow it.
I eventually found the ploughed field mentioned in the report although it was a longer walk to it than I expected, there was no sighting of an Osprey along The Yealm for me but I did find at least 4 mobile Whinchat feeding amongst the furrowed soil along with 3 Wheatears, Stonechats and "Alba" Wagtails. The surrounding hedgerow contained Whitethroats, Cirl Buntings and Chiffchaffs and I thought the loveliest yellow thing I would see all day was a beautiful juvenile Willow Warbler that was feeding with them but then I found a Yellow Wagtail out in the field which gave some great scope views, an absolutely gorgeous bird and nowhere near as neurotic as Yellow Wagtails usually are.
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