It was off to Suffolk for a few days on Monday 9th November to catch up with my family, it was a lovely sunny day on the car drive up to Suffolk and there were good numbers of Red Kites seen along the way to counteract the boredom of the 6 hour journey.
I didn't have any proper birding time on my visit but I did spend a very happy hour at Snape Maltings wandering along the River Alde while everyone else looked around the shops, it was a very high tide so the lack of mud meant I didn't see any waders but I did manage some good bird sightings anyway.
The highlight was a distant Barn Owl hunting over the reed beds at around 3pm on what was a grey and claggy afternoon. I first caught sight of a white bird flying amongst the reeds along a water ditch and I thought it was an Egret until I managed a better view and realised it was a Barn Owl although it did look incredibly pale. I watched it for some time, it occassionally landed out of sight for short periods but I never actually saw it catch anything.
2 large skeins of what I at first thought were Geese flew towards me, each skein was of around 100 birds each but as they got closer I realised they were in fact Cormorants. A Kestrel was also seen hovering over the reedbeds and 3 Marsh Harriers flew in to roost, 2 females and a noticeably smaller male bird. Bearded Tits were heard pinging in the reeds and I managed brief flight views of a male and a female bird and a Cetti's Warbler and a Water Rail were also heard but not seen.
It was a lovely and sunny day again on our drive back to Plymouth but despite the blue skies and gentle breeze I only saw 3 Red Kites on the journey to keep me occupied. Before we left for the journey home I had started to sneeze excessively and produce lots of clear snot and at first I thought it was allergies but by the time I arrived back in Plymouth the sneezing had stopped and I felt awful, very much a re-run of my first experience with COVID - just great!
I still felt rough on Sunday 15th November but I needed to get out of the house for some fresh air and so I headed out to Saltram for a gentle walk. I walked from Marsh Mills up to Saltram House and back, it wasn't too busy to begin with but runners on a sponsored half-marathon soon made the paths busy. It was high tide and I was pleased to see there was even more water present on Blaxton Meadow than usual and even better there were more birds than usual with 35 Curlew, 18 Oystercatcher and 8 Greenshank at roost amongst the Gulls present - hopefully the National Trust are finally getting their act together with better management of the water levels on the Meadow for the benefit of the birds. However despite this the Redshank flock had decided to roost along the Embankment and in amongst them were around 20 Dunlin which soon departed downriver as the tide dropped.
The overgrown vegetation on the Meadow was flooded in places and hidden amongst the weeds were feeding Mallards and Wigeons, the white farmyard Mallard was present amongst the Mallards and at one point the Wigeon all took to the air and I counted 25 birds but I'm sure a few more remained hunkered down and out of sight.
Other sightings of note on my walk were a male and 3 redhead Goosanders, 2 Little Grebe and a Common Sandpiper along the river, a male Blackcap, a Goldcrest and 3 Coal Tit in the woods and a juvenile Peregrine unsuccessfully hunting Feral Pigeons overhead.
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