More of the Waxwing

Thursday 3rd January and with the waxwing still being seen in Central Park I decided to go and have another look at it, taking my own camera this time, but again the light wasn't very good with grey and claggy skies.

I walked through Ford Park Cemetery on the way to the park, seeing coal tit, song thrush, jay, nuthatch and goldcrest for the year list but there was no sign of any black redstarts. Onwards into Central Park and on arriving at the berry tree there was quite a group of birders watching the waxwing which again gave some amazingly close views. It allowed very close approach again but did not like any dogs that came too close, flying off into the top of a nearby tall tree before returning when the dog moved off.

 Waxwing

 Waxwing 

 Waxwing 

Waxwing 

 

 Waxwing 

Waxwing - my best shot, cropped and retouched

Having dipped on black redstart at Ford Park Cemetery I was very pleased the following day while having a cup of tea in the staff room at work to see a very smart male black redstart flitting about the rooftops - I have seen them here before over the years but usually female types so to see a male was very special.

Saturday 5th January was grey and cold and claggy again and with the day free I decided to catch the bus out to Wembury first and then have a walk along the River Plym on the way back home. On arrival at Wembury it was very quiet but by the time I left at 11:30 it was getting busy with walkers and families as the Christmas school holidays have still yet to finish.

Bird wise it was quiet too with the highlights being a male bullfinch, a flighty flock of around 15 cirl buntings feeding in the stubble field, 2 adult winter plumaged Mediterranean gulls roosting on the rocks at low tide, a few gannets offshore, fulmars circling along the cliffs of The Mewstone and a flyover raven.

The footpath along the coast has been improved further with hard core having been put down to the memorial bench by the 2nd horse field but it has meant a lot of clearance has been done to the vegetation alongside the path, hopefully this won't affect the insect life found here too much.

Wembury Footpath

Another sad sight was a large grey seal corpse washed up at the top of the beach near the sewage pipe, it has been there a while by the look of it and looked quite eerie with its pale fur and empty eye sockets.

 Grey Seal Corpse

Grey Seal Corpse

I caught the bus back to Laira Bridge for my walk along the River Plym to Marsh Mills, expecting it to be very busy again but it was actually ok, much quieter than Wembury had been. It was low tide so I wasn't expecting good views of any waders but I did see a greenshank and a distant flock of around 100 dunlin along with curlew and redshank. Shelduck and mallard were also seen along with 7 little grebe, 2 male and 3 female goosander and 3 male and 3 female wigeon.

The woods in Saltram Park were devoid of any firecrests, stock doves and ring necked parakeets but I did see goldcrest, long-tailed tits, 2 mistle thrush, a great spotted woodpecker, Canada geese, a male pheasent, a chiffchaff and a sparrowhawk. There was no sign of any dipper or common sandpiper at Marsh Mills either and so I caught the bus back home where I was glad to get warmed up after a chilly but enjoyable walk.

Sunday 6th January and another grey and gloomy day but with the waxwing still showing well I decided to go and have another look at it. I started off in Ford Park Cemetery first where again there was no sign of any black redstarts but I did see a flyover male kestrel, 2 ravens and a female pheasant.

Pheasant

There were a few birders in the cemetery who had already been to look for the waxwing but there had been no sign of it so I wasn't sure if it would still be present. However on arriving at the cotoneaster tree it was sat there busily gobbling down red berries and again gave some lovely views. There has been the usual Twitter/Blog spats about getting too close to the bird but from my experience the bird has been quite unperturbed by the people watching it although it is definitely wary of any dogs that get too close - and anyway, why is it that birders with no binoculars or telescopes but with massive cameras have to get so close to the bird?

I watched it for a while and at times it gave a lovely trilling call as it scarfed down berries and constantly pooped - a very lovely looking bird indeed even in the gloomy light.

 Waxwing

Waxwing

New Years Day Waxwing in Plymouth

Christmas is done and dusted for another year (thank goodness) and with New Years Day to myself I decided to actually go birding, something I've never really done before due to work, weather or hangover! There were no bus services but trains were running and so I decided to head off to Dawlish Warren for a walk.

It was cloudy on leaving Plymouth on a later train than I had originally planned but it was all clear skies and sunshine on arriving at Dawlish Warren. A quick look off the sea wall revealed a few distant gannets diving offshore with a few scattered great crested grebes dotted around the bay and a brief view of a red throated diver quite close in before it dived and disappeared.

Onwards into the reserve and the usual woodland species were found - chaffinch, greenfinch, long tailed tit, etc, - along with a nice chiffchaff calling in the tree tops before moving off. The water level at the main pond was very high but another birder had found a very nice snipe sleeping at the waters edge and easily overlooked.

The path along the dune ridge has suffered a lot of erosion due to recent storms and is currently fenced off and so access to the hide is now along the beach but with it being low tide I decided to give the hide a miss and scanned the estuary and the sea from the dunes instead. The estuary revealed a male red breasted merganser, a greenshank, brent geese, shelduck and a lone lapwing amongst the usual birds while offshore a female teal and a small flock of around 30 wigeon were an odd sight sat on the sea.

It started to get very busy with lots of walkers, dogs and children and so I decided to leave earlier than I had planned and head back to Plymouth, walking along the sea wall to Dawlish to catch the train home. The train journey back to Plymouth went as smoothly as the mornings journey - trains on time and virtually empty, if only they were always like this - and from the train I managed to see mallard, jackdaw, sparrowhawk and little grebe for my year list.

A waxwing had been found in Central Park in Plymouth the previous day and as it is only a 10 minute walk to the park from the railway station I decided to have a quick look for it on arriving back in Plymouth despite the fading light. I soon found the cotoneaster tree full of berries that the lone 1st winter bird was frequenting with a few birders below watching it including local birder Russ who had texted me the news on New Years Eve. It gave some very nice views, being very confiding and allowing very close approach, but the light was fading and photography was a little difficult, not helped by picking up David's camera that morning as I left the house rather than my more advanced camera.

 Waxwing

 Waxwing 

Waxwing 

I watched it for a short while before heading home, only my second ever waxwing in Plymouth, and on tallying up the days birds later that evening my day list was an ok 49, 1 short of my target of 50, but the waxwing had been a cracking bird to end the day.

Waxwings by the A38, January 20th 2017

January 18th was a gorgeous and sunny day but we were committed to family issues including mother in law getting her biopsy and CT scan results and the subsequent bad medical news - this year is really starting to shape up as being worse than last year. At least my mate Mavis got out birding at Bowling Green Marsh today in the lovely light, she is waiting for a hip replacement but got out on a mobility scooter and has sent me a gorgeous photo of a lapwing.

Lapwing, Bowling Green Marsh, courtesy of Mavis

There have been quite a few reports of waxwings in Devon and Cornwall in the past week since my Plymstock dip on January 7th with birds reported in Saltash, Holsworthy, Exeter, Topsham and Dawlish Warren but the report of a small flock at Heathfield was the most interesting to me. Back in 2013 I saw 8 waxwings at Heathfield, my last waxwing sightings, but the surroundings were not ideal as they were feeding on haws, hips and apples on the central reservation of the A38 opposite a tile factory - noisy, smelly, constant disturbance and a little scary - but this was where the waxwings had decided to make their temporary home again.

David very kindly offered to drive me to Heathfield to have a look for them on January 20th and after parking up at nearby Stover we quickly found the birds in the roadside trees being watched by assorted birders. They gave their position away by the lovely trilling calls they were regularly giving and quite audible over the noisy rumblings of the busy traffic along the dual carriageway but were surprisingly easy to overlook perched amongst the tree top branches.

Waxwing!

Waxwing

Waxwing

They regularly flew from the trees to the central reservation to feed before returning back to the trees and gave some very nice views in less than ideal conditions although they were always on the move and were quite skittish at times, especially when a large and noisy juggernaut sped by. I managed to count a total of 11 birds as they were often spread out along the verge and it was very lovely to watch them although with all the berries around in Devon at the moment I don't know why they have picked such a noisy and disturbed spot to feed.

 Waxwings

 Waxwing

 Waxwing - lovely!

Waxwing

We had a walk around Stover Park which was much more peaceful on a sunny and crisp winters day with the lake being mostly frozen over and white frost remaining in patches on the vegetation where the sun hadn't yet reached. On the small patch of open water left on the lake and the canal there were 3 male and 4 female tufted duck and the same of pochard, plenty of mallards, 3 mute swan, a cormorant, moorhens, coot and a pair of mandarin duck.

Mandarin Duck

The lakeside path was closed in part for tree clearance but the tree top walkway was open and there were a pair of marsh tits ( one with a silver ring on its left leg) and a female bullfinch around the feeders with blue, great and coal tits and 6 very chunky looking grey squirrels feeding on the ground underneath them.

 Marsh Tit

Blue Tit

We then headed off to nearby Bovey Tracey for lunch at The Brookside Café which was as good as ever before driving home, I would have liked to have stayed out for longer but had to get back to get ready for a dreaded night shift. It had been a very nice trip out though, any day with waxwings in it is a good day, they are such strange looking birds that don't quite sit in the British winter landscape but always a joy to see (and hear).