Spring on The Plym

Friday 18th March was yet another glorious day with sunshine and blue skies but with a continuing chilly breeze. I was up and out of the house by 8am and heading off to Saltram to meet up with other birders from the Friends of Saltrams Wildlife Group for a meeting to discuss the ongoing plans to build a solar farm on Chelson Meadow, the best piece of wildlife habitat on the whole of the Saltram Estate.

Chelson Meadow - soon to be no more

The meeting was with Alistair Macpherson, the Chief Executive of Plymouth Energy Community, the company developing the scheme, and while it was interesting and informative the overall feeling was that the scheme is going to go ahead anyway and it is now about getting as much mitigation in place to try and keep as much benefit to wildlife as possible as the development goes ahead.

It's all very sad, a beautiful piece of habitat in the heart of Plymouth is set to be destroyed and the loss of wildlife is tragic. Annoyingly the houses currently being built on the housing estate next to Chelson Meadow could quite easily accomodate more solar panels on their roofs than the solar farm will achieve and all without any habitat loss.

We may be in a climate crisis but we are also in an ecological crisis too, destroying habitat to generate green energy is really not the way to go and surely there is a better site for this scheme to go ahead on. 

Anyway.............. 

The meeting lasted about an hour and when it was finished I had a wander around the Estate and along the Plym, enjoying the sunshine and the wildlife on view including a good count of 11 Roe Deer. 

Roe Deer

The sunshine again brought out the butterflies and I managed to see at least 5 Peacock, 3 Comma and 3 Small Tortoiseshell. 

Peacock

Comma

Comma

A Dark-edged Bee Fly was a first for the year too as it fed on Primrose flowers. 

Dark-edged Bee Fly

It was lovely to hear at least 6 Chiffchaffs singing away along with my first 2 Blackcaps of the year. A yaffling Green Woodpecker and a drumming Great Spotted Woodpecker were heard only but a pair of Bullfinch, a singing Goldcrest, a songflighting Greenfinch, at least 4 Stock Doves and at least 5 Ring-necked Parakeets were seen. A Peregrine flying over was presumably one of the birds from the nearby nest site at Plymbridge Woods. 

Along the Plym an aggressive Mute Swan chased off another pair which took flight and disappeared off downriver. A Kingfisher was also seen flying downriver on the dropping tide and a smart looking summer plumaged Shag was busily diving for food out on the water. A lone female Goosander and a lone male Mandarin Duck were also noted along with the usual Mallard, Shelduck, Canada Geese and Cormorant. 

Mute Swan

The mudflats were relatively quiet but I did find 3 Greenshank, 2 Dunlin and a Curlew along with around 20 Redshank and 20 Turnstone while amongst the Gulls present (H, BH and GBB) were 5 Common Gulls (4 adults and 1 2nd calendar year bird) and an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull. 

An enjoyable walk despite the ongoing depressing situation regarding Chelson Meadow, at least spring is on its way and let's see where the solar farm application leads. 

Spring is Coming!

It's been a weird winter, mostly mild and wet and windy and this has been reflected in the birding, but now we are into March, the promise of Spring is in the air and I can't wait for it to finally arrive. 

Thursday 10th March started off cool and grey but I headed out to Wembury for a walk anyway to look for signs of spring. As the morning wore on the skies eventually cleared and it became pleasantly warm in the sunshine and signs of spring there were.

I managed 2 brief views of a flyby butterfly, probably a Small Tortoiseshell, but a singing Chiffchaff at Wembury Point and 3 Common Lizards basking in the sun were much more obliging.

Common Lizard

Common Lizard

The tide was high but with the strong onshore wind it was relatively quiet along the beach with just 4 Little Egret, 5 Mallard (3 male) and Oystercatchers trying to roost. Rock Pipits were feeding on the seaweed mass with some looking very Scandinavian-like with hints of pinky washed breasts, blue tinged heads, minimally streaked bellys and bold supercilliums.

Overhead 5 Buzzards were displaying and calling including a very pale looking bird along with a hovering male Kestrel and 2 Raven carrying beakfuls of sheep's wool. 

A Cirl Bunting was heard singing and I had some nice views of 4 birds (2 males) feeding together in the stubble field. A Song Thrush and 2 Coal Tit in the wood behind the stables were firsts for Wembury this year and 2 male Bullfinches showed well in the valley to the beach before flying off into the village gardens.

Cirl Bunting

I had some distant views of probable Sparrowhawks soaring and I thought I heard a Tawny Owl "tu-wu-ing" near the church but I couldn't be sure. I also had a brief and distant view of a probable Great Crested Grebe flying west before it disappeared around the Point, all very frustrating as they would all have been a Wembury year ticks but there is always another day!

After working a long day and then 2 night shifts I was a little cream crackered when I settled down on the settee to watch TV on the afternoon of Tuesday 15th March but when news of 3 male Garganey present on the Plym Estuary along with a female came through I decided to head out for a look. I was on site at 5pm, within 30 minutes of getting the news, and as expected I unfortunately failed to find them in the fading light. I did however get a distant view of a Great Crested Grebe, my first for the Plym this year, plus views of a female Goosander, 5 Greenshank, a Redwing and a Lesser Black-backed Gull along with the usual birds.

It was all blue skies and sunshine on waking up on the morning of Thursday 17th March and despite a cool start it soon became a pleasantly warm day even in a somewhat chilly breeze.

I caught the bus out to Wembury to meet up with Mavis for a walk and we were hopeful of catching up with our first Wheatear of the year but we were out of luck although we did see a good selection of wildlife.

Wembury Church

Comma, Peacock and 3 Small Tortoiseshell were all seen basking in the sunshine along with 3 Common Lizards, a Bloody Nose Beetle and 6 Black Oil Beetles.

Comma

Peacock

Small Tortoiseshell

Common Lizard

Black Oil Beetle

Cirl Buntings showed very well in the stubble field, at least 3 males and 2 females, with the males looking stunning in the bright sunshine. 

Cirl Bunting (Photo courtesy of Mavis) 

Overhead a pair of Kestrel, a pair of Sparrowhawk, 8 Buzzards and 2 Ravens were noted while along the footpath Stonechats and Linnets were seen. 2 Chiffchaffs were heard singing too. 

All in all a very lovely springtime walk along the coast, it's finally feeling like winters grip is very much loosened.